The source(s) of the neutrino excess reported by the IceCube Collaboration is unknown. The TANAMI Collaboration recently reported on the multiwavelength emission of six bright, variable blazars which are positionally coincident with two of the most e
nergetic IceCube events. Objects like these are prime candidates to be the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and thus of associated neutrino emission. We present an analysis of neutrino emission from the six blazars using observations with the ANTARES neutrino telescope.The standard methods of the ANTARES candidate list search are applied to six years of data to search for an excess of muons --- and hence their neutrino progenitors --- from the directions of the six blazars described by the TANAMI Collaboration, and which are possibly associated with two IceCube events. Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response to both signal and background particle fluxes are used to estimate the sensitivity of this analysis for different possible source neutrino spectra. A maximum-likelihood approach, using the reconstructed energies and arrival directions of through-going muons, is used to identify events with properties consistent with a blazar origin.Both blazars predicted to be the most neutrino-bright in the TANAMI sample (1653$-$329 and 1714$-$336) have a signal flux fitted by the likelihood analysis corresponding to approximately one event. This observation is consistent with the blazar-origin hypothesis of the IceCube event IC14 for a broad range of blazar spectra, although an atmospheric origin cannot be excluded. No ANTARES events are observed from any of the other four blazars, including the three associated with IceCube event IC20. This excludes at a 90% confidence level the possibility that this event was produced by these blazars unless the neutrino spectrum is flatter than $-2.4$.
The lunar Cherenkov technique is a method to use radio-telescopes to detect ultra-high energy cosmic rays (CR) and neutrinos ($ u$). By observing the short-duration ($sim$few nanosecond) pulses of coherent Cherenkov radiation emitted from particle ca
scades via the Askaryan Effect in the Moons outer layers (nominally the regolith), the primary particles initiating the cascades may be identified. Our collaboration (LUNASKA) aims to develop the technique to be used with the next generation of giant radio-arrays. Here, we present the results of our two preliminary UHE particle searches using this technique with three antennas at the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) during February and May 2008.
This contribution describes the experimental set-up implemented by the LUNASKA project at the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to enable the radio-telescope to be used to search for pulses of coherent Cherenkov radiation from UHE particle int
eractions in the Moon with an unprecedented bandwidth, and hence sensitivity. Our specialised hardware included analogue de-dispersion filters to coherently correct for the dispersion expected of a ~nanosecond pulse in the Earths ionosphere over our wide (600 MHz) bandwidth, and FPGA-based digitising boards running at 2.048 GHz for pulse detection. The trigger algorithm is described, as are the methods used discriminate between terrestrial RFI and true lunar pulses. We also outline the next stage of hardware development expected to be used in our 2010 observations.
We use computer simulations to obtain the directional-dependence of the lunar Cherenkov technique for ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino detection. We calculate the instantaneous effective area of past lunar Cherenkov experiments as a function of neutr
ino arrival direction, and hence the directional-dependence of the combined limit imposed by GLUE and the experiment at Parkes. We also determine the directional dependence of the aperture of future planned experiments with ATCA, ASKAP and the SKA to a UHE neutrino flux, and calculate the potential annual exposure to astronomical objects as a function of angular distance from the lunar trajectory through celestial coordinates.
