- Main
SEARCH for SOURCES of HIGH-ENERGY NEUTRONS with FOUR YEARS of DATA from the ICETOP DETECTOR
- Author(s): Aartsen, MG
- Abraham, K
- Ackermann, M
- Adams, J
- Aguilar, JA
- Ahlers, M
- Ahrens, M
- Altmann, D
- Andeen, K
- Anderson, T
- Ansseau, I
- Anton, G
- Archinger, M
- Argüelles, C
- Auffenberg, J
- Axani, S
- Bai, X
- Barwick, SW
- Baum, V
- Bay, R
- Beatty, JJ
- Tjus, JB
- Becker, KH
- Benzvi, S
- Berghaus, P
- Berley, D
- Bernardini, E
- Bernhard, A
- Besson, DZ
- Binder, G
- Bindig, D
- Bissok, M
- Blaufuss, E
- Blot, S
- Bohm, C
- Börner, M
- Bos, F
- Bose, D
- Böser, S
- Botner, O
- Braun, J
- Brayeur, L
- Bretz, HP
- Burgman, A
- Carver, T
- Casier, M
- Cheung, E
- Chirkin, D
- Christov, A
- Clark, K
- Classen, L
- Coenders, S
- Collin, GH
- Conrad, JM
- Cowen, DF
- Cross, R
- Day, M
- André, JPAMD
- Clercq, CD
- Rosendo, EDP
- Dembinski, H
- Ridder, SD
- Desiati, P
- Vries, KDD
- Wasseige, GD
- With, MD
- Deyoung, T
- Díaz-Vélez, JC
- Lorenzo, VD
- Dujmovic, H
- Dumm, JP
- Dunkman, M
- Eberhardt, B
- Ehrhardt, T
- Eichmann, B
- Eller, P
- Euler, S
- Evenson, PA
- Fahey, S
- Fazely, AR
- Feintzeig, J
- Felde, J
- Filimonov, K
- Finley, C
- Flis, S
- Fösig, CC
- Franckowiak, A
- Friedman, E
- Fuchs, T
- Gaisser, TK
- Gallagher, J
- Gerhardt, L
- Ghorbani, K
- Giang, W
- Gladstone, L
- Glagla, M
- Glüsenkamp, T
- Goldschmidt, A
- Golup, G
- Gonzalez, JG
- et al.
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/129Abstract
IceTop is an air-shower array located on the Antarctic ice sheet at the geographic South Pole. IceTop can detect an astrophysical flux of neutrons from Galactic sources as an excess of cosmic-ray air showers arriving from the source direction. Neutrons are undeflected by the Galactic magnetic field and can typically travel 10 (E/PeV) pc before decay. Two searches are performed using 4 yr of the IceTop data set to look for a statistically significant excess of events with energies above 10 PeV (10 eV) arriving within a small solid angle. The all-sky search method covers from -90° to approximately -50° in declination. No significant excess is found. A targeted search is also performed, looking for significant correlation with candidate sources in different target sets. This search uses a higher-energy cut (100 PeV) since most target objects lie beyond 1 kpc. The target sets include pulsars with confirmed TeV energy photon fluxes and high-mass X-ray binaries. No significant correlation is found for any target set. Flux upper limits are determined for both searches, which can constrain Galactic neutron sources and production scenarios. 16