arXiv subjects

M. Neff

Publications and source records attributed to M. Neff.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Simulation chain and signal classification for acoustic neutrino detection in seawater

Acoustic neutrino detection is a promising approach to extend the energy range of neutrino telescopes to energies beyond $10^{18}$\,eV. Currently operational and planned water-Cherenkov neutrino telescopes, most notably KM3NeT, include acoustic sensors in addition to the optical ones. These acoustic sensors could be used as instruments for acoustic detection, while their main purpose is the position calibration of the detection units. In this article, a Monte Carlo simulation chain for acoustic detectors will be presented, covering the initial interaction of the neutrino up to the signal classification of recorded events. The ambient and transient background in the simulation was implemented according to data recorded by the acoustic set-up AMADEUS inside the ANTARES detector. The effects of refraction on the neutrino signature in the detector are studied, and a classification of the recorded events is implemented. As bipolar waveforms similar to those of the expected neutrino signals are also emitted from other sound sources, additional features like the geometrical shape of the propagation have to be considered for the signal classification. This leads to a large improvement of the background suppression by almost two orders of magnitude, since a flat cylindrical "pancake" propagation pattern is a distinctive feature of neutrino signals. An overview of the simulation chain and the signal classification will be presented and preliminary studies of the performance of the classification will be discussed.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Optical and X-ray early follow-up of ANTARES neutrino alerts

High-energy neutrinos could be produced in the interaction of charged cosmic rays with matter or radiation surrounding astrophysical sources. Even with the recent detection of extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos by the IceCube experiment, no astrophysical neutrino source has yet been discovered. Transient sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, core-collapse supernovae, or active galactic nuclei are promising candidates. Multi-messenger programs offer a unique opportunity to detect these transient sources. By combining the information provided by the ANTARES neutrino telescope with information coming from other observatories, the probability of detecting a source is enhanced, allowing the possibility of identifying a neutrino progenitor from a single detected event. A method based on optical and X-ray follow-ups of high-energy neutrino alerts has been developed within the ANTARES collaboration. This program, denoted as TAToO, triggers a network of robotic optical telescopes (TAROT and ROTSE) and the Swift-XRT with a delay of only a few seconds after a neutrino detection, and is therefore well-suited to search for fast transient sources. To identify an optical or X-ray counterpart to a neutrino signal, the images provided by the follow-up observations are analysed with dedicated pipelines. A total of 42 alerts with optical and 7 alerts with X-ray images taken with a maximum delay of 24 hours after the neutrino trigger have been analysed. No optical or X-ray counterparts associated to the neutrino triggers have been found, and upper limits on transient source magnitudes have been derived. The probability to reject the gamma-ray burst origin hypothesis has been computed for each alert.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Time calibration with atmospheric muon tracks in the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES experiment consists of an array of photomultipliers distributed along 12 lines and located deep underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. It searches for astrophysical neutrinos collecting the Cherenkov light induced by the charged particles, mainly muons, produced in neutrino interactions around the detector. Since at energies of $\sim$10 TeV the muon and the incident neutrino are almost collinear, it is possible to use the ANTARES detector as a neutrino telescope and identify a source of neutrinos in the sky starting from a precise reconstruction of the muon trajectory. To get this result, the arrival times of the Cherenkov photons must be accurately measured. A to perform time calibrations with the precision required to have optimal performances of the instrument is described. The reconstructed tracks of the atmospheric muons in the ANTARES detector are used to determine the relative time offsets between photomultipliers. Currently, this method is used to obtain the time calibration constants for photomultipliers on different lines at a precision level of 0.5 ns. It has also been validated for calibrating photomultipliers on the same line, using a system of LEDs and laser light devices.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Search for muon-neutrino emission from GeV and TeV gamma-ray flaring blazars using five years of data of the ANTARES telescope

The ANTARES telescope is well-suited for detecting astrophysical transient neutrino sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all times with a high duty cycle. The background due to atmospheric particles can be drastically reduced, and the point-source sensitivity improved, by selecting a narrow time window around possible neutrino production periods. Blazars, being radio-loud active galactic nuclei with their jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, are particularly attractive potential neutrino point sources, since they are among the most likely sources of the very high-energy cosmic rays. Neutrinos and gamma rays may be produced in hadronic interactions with the surrounding medium. Moreover, blazars generally show high time variability in their light curves at different wavelengths and on various time scales. This paper presents a time-dependent analysis applied to a selection of flaring gamma-ray blazars observed by the FERMI/LAT experiment and by TeV Cherenkov telescopes using five years of ANTARES data taken from 2008 to 2012. The results are compatible with fluctuations of the background. Upper limits on the neutrino fluence have been produced and compared to the measured gamma-ray spectral energy distribution.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Search of Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

A search for high-energy neutrinos coming from the direction of the Galactic Centre is performed using the data recorded by the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria are chosen to maximise the sensitivity to possible signals produced by the self-annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles accumulated around the centre of the Milky Way with respect to the atmospheric background. After data unblinding, the number of neutrinos observed in the line of sight of the Galactic Centre is found to be compatible with background expectations. The 90% C.L. upper limits in terms of the neutrino+anti-neutrino flux, $\rm \Phi_{\nu_{\mu}+\bar{\nu}_\mu}$, and the velocity averaged annihilation cross-section, $\rm <\sigma_{A}v>$, are derived for the WIMP self-annihilation channels into $\rm b\bar{b},W^{+}W^{-},\tau^{+}\tau^{-},\mu^{+}\mu^{-},\nu\bar{\nu}$. The ANTARES limits for $\rm <\sigma_{A}v>$ are shown to be the most stringent for a neutrino telescope over the WIMP masses $\rm 25\,GeV < M_{WIMP} < 10\,TeV$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

ANTARES Constrains a Blazar Origin of Two IceCube PeV Neutrino Events

The source(s) of the neutrino excess reported by the IceCube Collaboration is unknown. The TANAMI Collaboration recently reported on the multiwavelength emission of six bright, variable blazars which are positionally coincident with two of the most energetic IceCube events. Objects like these are prime candidates to be the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and thus of associated neutrino emission. We present an analysis of neutrino emission from the six blazars using observations with the ANTARES neutrino telescope.The standard methods of the ANTARES candidate list search are applied to six years of data to search for an excess of muons --- and hence their neutrino progenitors --- from the directions of the six blazars described by the TANAMI Collaboration, and which are possibly associated with two IceCube events. Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response to both signal and background particle fluxes are used to estimate the sensitivity of this analysis for different possible source neutrino spectra. A maximum-likelihood approach, using the reconstructed energies and arrival directions of through-going muons, is used to identify events with properties consistent with a blazar origin.Both blazars predicted to be the most neutrino-bright in the TANAMI sample (1653$-$329 and 1714$-$336) have a signal flux fitted by the likelihood analysis corresponding to approximately one event. This observation is consistent with the blazar-origin hypothesis of the IceCube event IC14 for a broad range of blazar spectra, although an atmospheric origin cannot be excluded. No ANTARES events are observed from any of the other four blazars, including the three associated with IceCube event IC20. This excludes at a 90\% confidence level the possibility that this event was produced by these blazars unless the neutrino spectrum is flatter than $-2.4$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Constraining the neutrino emission of gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars with ANTARES data

This paper proposes to exploit gravitational lensing effects to improve the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to the intrinsic neutrino emission of distant blazar populations. This strategy is illustrated with a search for cosmic neutrinos in the direction of four distant and gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars. The magnification factor is estimated for each system assuming a singular isothermal profile for the lens. Based on data collected from 2007 to 2012 by the ANTARES neutrino telescope, the strongest constraint is obtained from the lensed quasar B0218+357, providing a limit on the total neutrino luminosity of this source of $1.08\times 10^{46}\,\mathrm{erg}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. This limit is about one order of magnitude lower than those previously obtained in the ANTARES standard point source searches with non-lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Searches for Point-like and extended neutrino sources close to the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES neutrino Telescope

A search for cosmic neutrino sources using six years of data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope has been performed. Clusters of muon neutrinos over the expected atmospheric background have been looked for. No clear signal has been found. The most signal-like accumulation of events is located at equatorial coordinates RA=$-$46.8$^{\circ}$ and Dec=$-$64.9$^{\circ}$ and corresponds to a 2.2$\sigma$ background fluctuation. In addition, upper limits on the flux normalization of an E$^{-2}$ muon neutrino energy spectrum have been set for 50 pre-selected astrophysical objects. Finally, motivated by an accumulation of 7 events relatively close to the Galactic Centre in the recently reported neutrino sample of the IceCube telescope, a search for point sources in a broad region around this accumulation has been carried out. No indication of a neutrino signal has been found in the ANTARES data and upper limits on the flux normalization of an E$^{-2}$ energy spectrum of neutrinos from point sources in that region have been set. The 90% confidence level upper limits on the muon neutrino flux normalization vary between 3.5 and 5.1$\times$10$^{-8}$ GeV$\,$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$, depending on the exact location of the source.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2014

Searches for clustering in the time integrated skymap of the ANTARES neutrino telescope

This paper reports a search for spatial clustering of the arrival directions of high energy muon neutrinos detected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope. An improved two-point correlation method is used to study the autocorrelation of 3058 neutrino candidate events as well as cross-correlations with other classes of astrophysical objects: sources of high energy gamma rays, massive black holes and nearby galaxies. No significant deviations from the isotropic distribution of arrival directions expected from atmospheric backgrounds are observed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

A Search for Time Dependent Neutrino Emission from Microquasars with the ANTARES Telescope

Results are presented on a search for neutrino emission from a sample of six microquasars, based on the data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope between 2007 and 2010. By means of appropriate time cuts, the neutrino search has been restricted to the periods when the acceleration of relativistic jets was taking place at the microquasars under study. The time cuts have been chosen using the information from the X-ray telescopes RXTE/ASM and Swift/BAT, and, in one case, the gamma-ray telescope Fermi/LAT. Since none of the searches has produced a statistically significant signal, upper limits on the neutrino fluences are derived and compared to the predictions from theoretical models.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Simulation Chain for Acoustic Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detectors

Acoustic neutrino detection is a promising approach for large-scale ultra-high energy neutrino detectors in water. In this article, a Monte Carlo simulation chain for acoustic neutrino detection devices in water is presented. It is designed within the SeaTray/IceTray software framework. Its modular architecture is highly flexible and makes it easy to adapt to different environmental conditions, detector geometries, and hardware. The simulation chain covers the generation of the acoustic pulse produced by a neutrino interaction and the propagation to the sensors within the detector. In this phase of the development, ambient and transient noise models for the Mediterranean Sea and simulations of the data acquisition hardware, similar to the one used in ANTARES/AMADEUS, are implemented. A pre-selection scheme for neutrino-like signals based on matched filtering is employed, as it can be used for on-line filtering. To simulate the whole processing chain for experimental data, signal classification and acoustic source reconstruction algorithms are integrated. In this contribution, an overview of the design and capabilities of the simulation chain will be given, and some applications and preliminary studies will be presented.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Simulation and Analysis Chain for Acoustic Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detectors in Water

Acousticneutrinodetectionisapromisingapproachforlarge-scaleultra-highenergyneutrinodetectorsinwater.In this article, a Monte Carlo simulation chain for acoustic neutrino detection devices in water will be presented. The simulation chain covers the generation of the acoustic pulse produced by a neutrino interaction and its propagation to the sensors within the detector. Currently, ambient and transient noise models for the Mediterranean Sea and simulations of the data acquisition hardware, equivalent to the one used in ANTARES/AMADEUS, are implemented. A pre-selection scheme for neutrino-like signals based on matched filtering is employed, as it is used for on-line filtering. To simulate the whole processing chain for experimental data, signal classification and acoustic source reconstruction algorithms are integrated in an analysis chain. An overview of design and capabilities of the simulation and analysis chain will be presented and preliminary studies will be discussed.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

A beam monitor detector based on doped silica and optical fibres

A beam monitor detector prototype based on doped silica fibres coupled to optical fibres has been designed, constructed and tested, mainly for accelerators used in medical applications. Scintillation light produced by Ce and Sb doped silica fibres moving across the beam has been measured, giving information on beam position, shape and intensity. Mostly based on commercial components, the detector is easy to install, to operate and no electronic components are located near the beam. Tests have been performed with a 2 MeV proton pulsed beam at an average current of 0.8 {\mu}A. The response characteristics of Sb doped silica fibres have been studied for the first time.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2011

Signal Classification for Acoustic Neutrino Detection

This article focuses on signal classification for deep-sea acoustic neutrino detection. In the deep sea, the background of transient signals is very diverse. Approaches like matched filtering are not sufficient to distinguish between neutrino-like signals and other transient signals with similar signature, which are forming the acoustic background for neutrino detection in the deep-sea environment. A classification system based on machine learning algorithms is analysed with the goal to find a robust and effective way to perform this task. For a well-trained model, a testing error on the level of one percent is achieved for strong classifiers like Random Forest and Boosting Trees using the extracted features of the signal as input and utilising dense clusters of sensors instead of single sensors.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

Development of Combined Opto-Acoustical Sensor Modules

The faint fluxes of cosmic neutrinos expected at very high energies require large instrumented detector volumes. The necessary volumes in combination with a sufficient shielding against background constitute forbidding and complex environments (e.g. the deep sea) as sites for neutrino telescopes. To withstand these environments and to assure the data quality, the sensors have to be reliable and their operation has to be as simple as possible. A compact sensor module design including all necessary components for data acquisition and module calibration would simplify the detector mechanics and ensures the long term operability of the detector. The compact design discussed here combines optical and acoustical sensors inside one module, therefore reducing electronics and additional external instruments for calibration purposes. In this design the acoustical sensor is primary used for acoustic positioning of the module. The module may also be used for acoustic particle detection and marine science if an appropriate acoustical sensor is chosen. First tests of this design are promising concerning the task of calibration. To expand the field of application also towards acoustic particle detection further improvements concerning electromagnetic shielding and adaptation of the single components are necessary.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2010

Time Calibration of the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

The ANTARES deep-sea neutrino telescope comprises a three-dimensional array of photomultipliers to detect the Cherenkov light induced by upgoing relativistic charged particles originating from neutrino interactions in the vicinity of the detector. The large scattering length of light in the deep sea facilitates an angular resolution of a few tenths of a degree for neutrino energies exceeding 10 TeV. In order to achieve this optimal performance, the time calibration procedures should ensure a relative time calibration between the photomultipliers at the level of about 1ns. The methods developed to attain this level of precision are described.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2009

Reconstruction methods for acoustic particle detection in the deep sea using clusters of hydrophones

This article focuses on techniques for acoustic noise reduction, signal filters and source reconstruction. For noise reduction, bandpass filters and cross correlations are found to be efficient and fast ways to improve the signal to noise ratio and identify a possible neutrino-induced acoustic signal. The reconstruction of the position of an acoustic point source in the sea is performed by using small-volume clusters of hydrophones (about 1 cubic meter) for direction reconstruction by a beamforming algorithm. The directional information from a number of such clusters allows for position reconstruction. The algorithms for data filtering, direction and position reconstruction are explained and demonstrated using simulated data.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2009

Position reconstruction of acoustic sources with the AMADEUS Detector

This article focuses on techniques for position reconstruction of acoustic point sources with the AMADEUS setup consisting of 36 acoustic sensors in the Mediterranean Sea. The direction reconstruction of an acoustic point source utilizes the information of the 6 small-volume hydrophone clusters of AMADEUS individually. Source position reconstruction is then done by combining the directional information of each cluster. The algorithms for direction and position reconstruction are explained and demonstrated using data taken in the deep sea.

astro-ph.IM↗