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GCN Circular 26458

Subject
LIGO/Virgo S191216ap : no neutrino counterpart candidate in ANTARES search
Date
2019-12-16T22:57:22Z (5 years ago)
From
Thierry Pradier at ANTARES/IPHC/U of Strasbourg <tpradier@km3net.de>
M. Ageron (CPPM/CNRS), B. Baret (APC/CNRS), A. Coleiro (APC/Universite de Paris), M. Colomer (APC/Universite de Paris), D. Dornic (CPPM/CNRS), A. Kouchner (APC/Universite de Paris), T. Pradier (IPHC/Universite de Strasbourg) report on behalf of the ANTARES Collaboration:


Using on-line data from the ANTARES detector, we have performed a follow-up analysis of the
recently reported LIGO/Virgo S191216ap event using the 90% contour of the Initial bayestar probability
map provided by the GW interferometers (GCN#26454 <https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/26454.gcn3>). The ANTARES visibility at the time of the
alert, together with the 50% and 90% contours of the probability map are shown at http://antares.in2p3.fr/GW/S191216ap_Initial.png <http://antares.in2p3.fr/GW/S191216ap_Initial.png>.
Considering the location probability provided by the LIGO/Virgo collaborations, there is a
15.9% chance that the GW emitter was in the ANTARES **upgoing** field of view at the time of
the alert.

No up-going muon neutrino candidate events were recorded in the ANTARES sky during a
+/-500s time-window centered on the time 2019-12-16 21:33:38 and in the 90% contour of the S191216ap
event. The expected number of atmospheric background events in the region visible by ANTARES is
6.52e-05 in the +/- 500s time window. An extended search during +/- 1 hour gives no
up-going muon neutrino coincidence. The expected number of atmospheric background events in the
region visible by ANTARES overlapping with the 90% contour is 4.70e-04 in this larger time window.

ANTARES is the largest undersea neutrino detector, installed in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is
primarily sensitive to neutrinos in the TeV-PeV  energy range. At 10 TeV, the median angular
resolution for muon neutrinos is about 0.5 degrees. In the range 1-100 TeV ANTARES has a
competitive sensitivity to this position in the sky.
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