Abstract: The existence of diffuse Galactic neutrino production is expected from cosmic-ray interactions with Galactic gas and radiation fields. Thus, neutrinos are a unique messenger offering the opportunity to test the products of Galactic cosmic-ray interactions up to energies of hundreds of TeV. Here we present a search for this production using ten years of Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch (ANTARES) track and shower data, as well as seven years of IceCube track data. The data are combined into a joint likelihood test for neutrino emission according to the KRA(gamma) model assuming a 5 PeV per nucleon Galactic cosmic-ray cutoff. No significant excess is found. As a consequence, the limits presented in this Letter start constraining the model parameter space for Galactic cosmic-ray production and transport.

Abstract: The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory surveys the very high-energy sky in the 300 GeV to >100 TeV energy range. HAWC has detected two blazars above 11 sigma, Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) and Markarian 501 (Mrk 501). The observations are comprised of data taken in the period between 2015 June and 2018 July, resulting in similar to 1038 days of exposure. In this work, we report the time-averaged spectral analyses for both sources, above 0.5 TeV. Taking into account the flux attenuation due to the extragalactic background light, the intrinsic spectrum of Mrk 421 is described by a power law with an exponential energy cutoff with index alpha = 2.26 +/- (0.12)(stat)((+0.17)(-0.2))(sys) and energy cutoff E-c = 5.1 +/- (1.6)(stat)((+1.4)(-2.5))(sys) TeV, while the intrinsic spectrum of Mrk 501 is better described by a simple power law with index alpha = 2.61 +/- (0.11)(stat)((+)(0.01)(-0.07))(sys). The maximum energies at which the Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 signals are detected are 9 and 12 TeV, respectively. This makes these some of the highest energy detections to date for spectra averaged over years-long timescales. Since the observation of gamma radiation from blazars provides information about the physical processes that take place in their relativistic jets, it is important to study the broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these objects. For this purpose, contemporaneous data in the gamma-ray band to the X-ray range, and literature data in the radio to UV range, were used to build time-averaged SEDs that were modeled within a synchrotron-self Compton leptonic scenario.

Abstract: On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of similar to 1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg(2) at a luminosity distance of 40(-8)(+8) Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 M-circle dot. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at similar to 40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One-Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over similar to 10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient's position similar to 9 and similar to 16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta.

Abstract: We present a search, using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to two candidate high-energy neutrino events detected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope in 2013 November and 2014 March. These events were selected by ANTARES because they are consistent, within 0 degrees.4, with the locations of galaxies within 20 Mpc of Earth. Using MWA archival data at frequencies between 118 and 182 MHz, taken similar to 20. days prior to, at the same time as, and up to a year after the neutrino triggers, we look for transient or strongly variable radio sources that are consistent with the neutrino positions. No such counterparts are detected, and we set a 5 sigma upper limit for low-frequency radio emission of similar to 10(37) erg s(-1) for progenitors at 20 Mpc. If the neutrino sources are instead not in nearby galaxies, but originate in binary neutron star coalescences, our limits place the progenitors at z greater than or similar to 0.2. While it is possible, due to the high background from atmospheric neutrinos, that neither event is astrophysical, the MWA observations are nevertheless among the first to follow up neutrino candidates in the radio, and illustrate the promise of wide-field instruments like MWA for detecting EM counterparts to such events.

Abstract: We present neutrino mass bounds using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts measured from Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Data Release 8. The galaxies have photometric redshifts between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65 and cover 10,000 deg(2), thus probing a volume of 3 h(-3) Gpc(3) and enabling tight constraints to be derived on the amount of dark matter in the form of massive neutrinos. A new bound on the sum of neutrino masses Sigma m nu < 0.27 eV, at the 95% confidence level (CL), is obtained after combining our sample of galaxies, which we call “CMASS,” with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) seven-year cosmic microwave background data and the most recent measurement of the Hubble parameter from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This constraint is obtained with a conservative multipole range of 30 < l < 200 in order to minimize nonlinearities, and a free bias parameter in each of the four redshift bins. We study the impact of assuming this linear galaxy bias model using mock catalogs and find that this model causes a small (similar to 1 sigma-1.5 sigma) bias in Omega(DM)h(2). For this reason, we also quote neutrino bounds based on a conservative galaxy bias model containing additional, shot-noise-like free parameters. In this conservative case, the bounds are significantly weakened, e. g., Sigma m(nu) < 0.38 eV (95% CL) for WMAP+HST+CMASS (l(max) = 200). We also study the dependence of the neutrino bound on the multipole range (l(max) = 150 versus l(max) = 200) and on which combination of data sets is included as a prior. The addition of supernova and/or baryon acoustic oscillation data does not significantly improve the neutrino mass bound once the HST prior is included. A companion paper describes the construction of the angular power spectra in detail and derives constraints on a general cosmological model, including the dark energy equation of state w and the spatial curvature Omega(K), while a second companion paper presents a measurement of the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations from the same data set. All three works are based on the catalog by Ross et al.