IceCube-240123A

The IceCube Collaboration (http://icecube.wisc.edu/) reports:

On 2024-01-23 at 11:25:36.05 UT IceCube detected a track-like event with a moderate probability of being of astrophysical origin. The event was selected by the ICECUBE_Astrotrack_Bronze alert stream. The average astrophysical neutrino purity for Bronze alerts is 30%. This alert has an estimated false alarm rate of 4.1505 events per year due to atmospheric backgrounds. The IceCube detector was in a normal operating state at the time of detection.

After the initial automated alert (https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/notices_amon_g_b/138890_34080563.amon), more sophisticated reconstruction algorithms have been applied offline, with the direction refined to:

Date: 2024-01-23
Time:  11:25:36.05
RA: 357.54 (+1.93, -1.71 deg  90% PSF containment) J2000
Dec: +4.26 (+0.80, -0.76 deg 90% PSF containment) J2000

We encourage follow-up by ground and space-based instruments to help identify a possible astrophysical source for the candidate neutrino.

There are no Fermi 4FGL or 3FHL catalog sources in the 90% uncertainty region. The nearest gamma-ray source in either catalog is 4FGL J2349.4+0534 at RA: 357.36 deg, Dec: 5.58 deg (1.33 deg away from the best-fit event position).

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer neutrino detector operating at the geographic South Pole, Antarctica. The IceCube realtime 
alert point of contact can be reached at roc@icecube.wisc.edu

C. Bartolini (Univ of Trento & INFN Bari), S. Garrappa (Weizmann Institute of Science), S. Buson (Univ of Wuerzburg), L. Pfeiffer (Univ of Wuerzburg) and J. Sinapius (DESY) on behalf of the Fermi-LAT collaboration:

We report an analysis of observations of the vicinity of the IC240123A high-energy neutrino event (GCN 35604
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 ) with all-sky survey data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT), on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The IceCube event was detected on 2024-01-23 at 11:25:36.05 UT (T0) with J2000 position RA = 357.54 (+1.93, -1.71)deg, Decl. = +4.26 (+0.80, -0.76)deg (90% PSF containment).  According to the fourth Fermi LAT source catalog (4FGL-DR4), there are no 4FGL-DR4 cataloged gamma-ray (>100 MeV; The Fermi-LAT collaboration 2022, ApJS, 260, 53) sources in the 90% IC240123A uncertainty localization region. The nearest 4FGL cataloged gamma-ray source is 4FGL J2349.4+0534 (TXS 2346+052) at 1.33deg away from the neutrino best-fit position. Based on a preliminary analysis of the LAT data over one month and day timescale prior T0, this object is not significantly detected at gamma rays.

We searched for intermediate (days to years) timescale emission from a new gamma-ray source. Preliminary analysis indicates no significant (> 5 sigma) new excess emission (> 100 MeV) at the IC240123A best-fit position. Assuming a power-law spectrum (photon index = 2.0 fixed) for a point source at the IC240123A best-fit position, the >100 MeV flux upper limit (95% confidence) is <4.36e-10 ph cm^-2 s^-1 for ~15-years (2008-08-04 to 2024-01-23 UTC), and <2.42e-9 (<9.60e-8) ph cm^-2 s^-1 for a 1-month (1-day) integration time before T0.

Since Fermi normally operates in an all-sky scanning mode, regular monitoring of this region will continue. For this observation the Fermi-LAT contact person is C. Bartolini (chiara.bartolini at ba.infn.it).

The Fermi-LAT is a pair conversion telescope designed to cover the energy band from 20 MeV to greater than 300 GeV. It is the product of an international collaboration between NASA and DOE in the U.S. and many scientific institutions across France, Italy, Japan and Sweden.

The IceCube Collaboration (http://icecube.wisc.edu/) reports:

IceCube has performed a search [1] for additional track-like muon neutrino events arriving from the direction of IceCube-240123A (https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/35604
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 ) in a time range of 1000 seconds centered on the alert event time (2024-01-23 11:17:16.050 UTC to 2024-01-23 11:33:56.050 UTC) during which IceCube was collecting good quality data. Excluding the event that prompted the alert, zero track-like events are found within the 90% containment region of IceCube-240123A. The IceCube sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE at 1 TeV) within the locations spanned by the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-240123A is 1.4e-01 GeV cm^-2 in a 1000 second time window. 90% of events IceCube would detect from a source at this declination with an E^-2.5 spectrum have energies in the approximate energy range between 3e+02 GeV and 1e+05 GeV. 

A subsequent search was performed including 2 days of data centered on the alert event time (2024-01-22 11:25:36.050 UTC to 2024-01-24 11:25:36.050 UTC). In this case, we report a p-value of 0.08, consistent with no significant excess of track events. The IceCube sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE at 1 TeV) within the locations spanned by the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-240123A is 1.6e-01 GeV cm^-2 in a 2 day time window. 

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer neutrino detector operating at the geographic South Pole, Antarctica. The IceCube realtime alert point of contact can be reached at roc@icecube.wisc.edu.

[1] IceCube Collaboration, R. Abbasi  et al., ApJ 910 4 (2021)