Developing a platform for public neutrino cluster alerts with events from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
by
E/3rd floor-E.349 - Seminar room (E.349)
Marc de Hemptinne (chemin du Cyclotron, 2, Louvain-la-Neuve)
Astrophysical neutrinos can give us insight into the origin of cosmic rays and the particle acceleration mechanism occurring in some of the most extreme objects of our universe. The IceCube Neutrino observatory, which instruments a cubic-kilometer of the deep Antarctic ice, has been operating in its full configuration since 2011 and in 2013 announced its observation of the astrophysical neutrino flux. To identify specific sources of neutrinos, IceCube often implements a multimessenger approach by looking at sources that are bright in the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition, IceCube has implemented a realtime alert program which sends neutrino targets of opportunity to the multimessenger community. Blazars and other candidate neutrinos sources show variability in their electromagnetic observations, which may have correlated neutrino flares. While IceCube currently shares alerts from single high-energy neutrinos, there are new efforts to publicly share IceCube's “GFU-cluster” alerts that identify candidate neutrino flares. This talk will give an overview of realtime neutrino astronomy and highlight recent progress towards producing public neutrino cluster alerts in IceCube.