Search for neutrinos from transient sources with the ANTARES telescope and optical follow-up observations

D. Dornic (1) , J. Brunner (1) , J. Busto (1) , Imen Al Samarai (1) , S. Basa (2) , B. Gendre (2) , A. Mazure (2) , A. Klotz (3, 4) , M. Boer (4)

1 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
2 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
3 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements
4 OHP - Observatoire de Haute-Provence

The ANTARES telescope has the opportunity to detect transient neutrino sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, core-collapse supernovae, flares of active nuclei... To enhance the sensitivity to these sources, we have developed a new detection method based on the optical follow-up of "golden" neutrino events such as neutrino doublets coincident in time and space or single neutrinos of very high energy. The ANTARES Collaboration has therefore implemented a very fast on-line reconstruction with a good angular resolution. These characteristics allow to trigger an optical telescope network; since February 2008. ANTARES is sending alert trigger one or two times per month to the two 25 cm robotic telescope of TAROT. This follow-up of such special events would not only give access to the nature of the sources but also improves the sensitivity for transient neutrino sources.

Mots clés: neutrino; GRB; optical follow-up

Domaines: Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]

D. Dornic, J. Brunner, J. Busto, Imen Al Samarai, S. Basa, et al.. Search for neutrinos from transient sources with the ANTARES telescope and optical follow-up observations. 31 St International Cosmic Ray Conference, Jul 2009, Lodz, Poland. ⟨hal-02915496v1⟩