2017/07/26 by F. Lucarelli, C. Pittori, F. Verrecchia +19 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Event (particle physics) #Gamma ray #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Physics #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa81c8
published as ApJ 846, Vol. 2, p. 121 (2017) · 23 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 2017/07/26 · openalex created_date 2017/08/08 · openalex publication_date 2017/09/08 · arxiv updated 2017/09/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract On 2016 July 31 the ICECUBE collaboration reported the detection of a high-energy starting event induced by an astrophysical neutrino. Here, we report on a search for a gamma-ray counterpart to the ICECUBE-160731 event, made with the AGILE satellite. No detection was found spanning the time interval of ±1 ks around the neutrino event time T 0 using the AGILE “burst search” system. Looking for a possible gamma-ray precursor in the results of the AGILE -GRID automatic Quick Look procedure over predefined 48-hr time bins, we found an excess above 100 MeV between 1 and 2 days before T 0 , which is positionally consistent with the ICECUBE error circle, that has a post-trial significance of about . A refined data analysis of this excess confirms, a posteriori, the automatic detection. The new AGILE transient source, named AGL J1418+0008, thus stands as a possible ICECUBE-160731 gamma-ray precursor. No other space missions nor ground observatories have reported any detection of transient emission consistent with the ICECUBE event. We show that Fermi -LAT had a low exposure for the ICECUBE region during the AGILE gamma-ray transient. Based on an extensive search for cataloged sources within the error regions of ICECUBE-160731 and AGL J1418+0008, we find a possible common counterpart showing some of the key features associated with the high-energy peaked BL Lac (HBL) class of blazars. Further investigations on the nature of this source using dedicated SWIFT ToO data are presented.