ANTARES sensitivity to steady cosmic gamma ray sources

G. Guillard (1)

1 LPC - Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire - Clermont-Ferrand

Amongst the atmospheric muons recorded by neutrino telescopes are muons produced by the interaction of cosmic gamma rays with the Earth's atmosphere. Although they are not numerous, it has been suggested that such muons could be distinguished by neutrino telescopes from the isotropic background by correlating their direction with known sources of gamma rays. The ANTARES neutrino telescope is taking data at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea in its full configuration since May 2008. Its expected sensitivity to steady gamma ray sources is discussed, as well as the gamma ray induced neutrino contamination of cosmic neutrino signals. It is shown that the expected signal from steady gamma ray sources is well below the ANTARES detection ability, and that gamma rays are a negligible source of atmospheric neutrinos background.

Mots clés: TeV gamma rays; ANTARES; neutrino telescope

Domaines: Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Phénomènes cosmiques de haute energie [astro-ph.HE]; Phénomènes cosmiques de haute energie [astro-ph.HE]

G. Guillard. ANTARES sensitivity to steady cosmic gamma ray sources. ICRC2011 - 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Aug 2011, Beijing, China. 4 p., 2011. ⟨in2p3-00634438⟩