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 Facility (ZTF) performs a systematic neutrino follow-up programme, 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 h from initial neutrino detection. From two of these campaigns, we have already reported tidal disruption event (TDE) AT 2019dsg and likely TDE AT 2019fdr as probable counterparts, suggesting that TDEs contribute >7.8 per cent of the astrophysical neutrino flux. We here present the full results of our programme through to December 2021. No additional candidate neutrino sources were identified by our programme, 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 per cent of the total, while transients brighter than −22 can contribute no more than 58 per cent of the total, neglecting the effect of extinction and assuming they follow the star formation rate. These are 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, with such optical blazar flares producing no more than 26 per cent of the total neutrino flux. We highlight the outlook for electromagnetic neutrino follow-up programmes, including the expected potential for the Rubin Observatory.

Additional Information

© 2023 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) RS and AF acknowledges support by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association through the Young Investigator Group programme (AF). AF acknowledges funding from the German Science Foundation DFG, via the Collaborative Reasearch Centre SFB1491 "Cosmic Interacting Matters – From Source to Signal. JN and SR 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 ZTF project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number AST-1440341 and AST-2034437, and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Oskar Klein Centre 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 Number 1106171. The ZTF forced-photometry service was funded under the Heising-Simons Foundation grant number 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 (NASA). 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 Mauna Kea 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. 2013, 2018). This research made use of Astroquery (Ginsburg et al. 2019), of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Data base (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the NASA. DATA AVAILABILITY. The data presented here, and the Python analysis code used to generate the figures and key results, are available on Github: https://github.com/robertdstein/nuztfpaper They are also available directly from the author upon reasonable request.

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