Neutrino follow-up with the Zwicky Transient Facility: Results from the first 24 campaigns

Creators: Stein, Robert; Reusch, Simeon; Franckowiak, Anna; Kowalski, Marek; Necker, Jannis; Weimann, Sven; Kasliwal, Mansi M.; Sollerman, Jesper; Ahumada, Tomás; Amaro Seoane, Pau; Anand, Shreya; Andreoni, Igor; Bellm, Eric C.; Bloom, Joshua S.; Coughlin, Michael; De, Kishalay; Fremling, Christoffer; Gezari, Suvi; Graham, Matthew; Groom, Steven L.; Helou, George; Kaplan, David L.; Karambelkar, Viraj; Kong, Albert K. H.; Kool, Erik C.; Lincetto, Massimiliano; Mahabal, Ashish A.; Masci, Frank J.; Medford, Michael S.; Morgan, Robert; Nordin, Jakob; Rodriguez, Hector; Sharma, Yashvi; van Santen, Jakob; van Velzen, Sjoert; Yan, Lin

Abstract

The Zwicky Transient Transient Facility (ZTF) performs a systematic neutrino follow-up program, searching for optical counterparts to high-energy neutrinos with dedicated Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) observations. Since first light in March 2018, ZTF has taken prompt observations for 24 high-quality neutrino alerts from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, with a median latency of 12.2 hours from initial neutrino detection. From two of these campaigns, we have already reported tidal disruption event (TDE) AT2019dsg and likely TDE AT2019fdr as probable counterparts, suggesting that TDEs contribute >7.8% of the astrophysical neutrino flux. We here present the full results of our program through to December 2021. No additional candidate neutrino sources were identified by our program, allowing us to place the first constraints on the underlying optical luminosity function of astrophysical neutrino sources. Transients with optical absolutes magnitudes brighter that -21 can contribute no more than 87% of the total, while transients brighter than -22 can contribute no more than 58% of the total, neglecting the effect of extinction. These are the the first observational constraints on the neutrino emission of bright populations such as superluminous supernovae. None of the neutrinos were coincident with bright optical AGN flares comparable to that observed for TXS 0506+056/IC170922A, suggesting that most astrophysical neutrinos are not produced during such optical flares. We highlight the outlook for electromagnetic neutrino follow-up programs, including the expected potential for the Rubin Observatory.

Additional Information

R.S, and A.F. acknowledges support by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association through the Young Investigator Group program (A.F.). J.N. and S.R. acknowledges support by the Helmholtz Weizmann Research School on Multimessenger Astronomy, funded through the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association, DESY, the Weizmann Institute, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Potsdam. ECK acknowledges support from the G.R.E.A.T research environment funded by Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Research Council, under project number 2016-06012, and support from The Wenner-Gren Foundations. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1440341 and AST-2034437, and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, Trinity College Dublin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, IN2P3, France, the University of Warwick, the University of Bochum, and Northwestern University. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. SED Machine is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1106171. The ZTF forced-photometry service was funded under the Heising-Simons Foundation grant #12540303 (PI: Graham). The data presented herein were obtained in part at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained in part with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOT. This research made use of Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2018, 2013). This research made use of Astroquery (Ginsburg et al. 2019), of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. DATA AVAILABILITY. The data presented here, and the Python analysis code used to generate the figures and key results, will be provided by the authors upon reasonable request.

Attached Files

Submitted - 2203.17135.pdf

Files

2203.17135.pdf

Files (1.9 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
2203.17135.pdf md5:1a82e606e25624fc8489ef7ba8f986bf	1.9 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes