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

D. Dornic (1) , S. Basa (1) , J. Brunner (1) , I. Al Samarai (1) , J. Busto (1) , A. Klotz (2) , Stéphanie Escoffier (1) , V. Bertin (1) , B. Vallage (3) , B. Gendre (4) , A. Mazure (4) , M. Boër (5)

1 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
2 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements
3 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
4 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
5 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 2009. 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; neutrino, GRB, optical follow-up

Domaines: Phénomènes cosmiques de haute energie [astro-ph.HE]

D. Dornic, S. Basa, J. Brunner, I. Al Samarai, J. Busto, et al.. Search for neutrinos from transient sources with the ANTARES telescope and optical follow-up observations. 31st International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2009), Jul 2009, Lodz, Poland. ⟨hal-02915496v2⟩