Constraining the neutrino emission of gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars with ANTARES data

This paper proposes to exploit gravitational lensing effects to improve the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to the intrinsic neutrino emission of distant blazar populations. This strategy is illustrated with a search for cosmic neutrinos in the direction of four distant and gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars. The magnification factor is estimated for each system assuming a singular isothermal profile for the lens. Based on data collected from 2007 to 2012 by the ANTARES neutrino telescope, the strongest constraint is obtained from the lensed quasar B0218+357, providing a limit on the total neutrino luminosity of this source of 1.08×10^46 erg s-1. This limit is about one order of magnitude lower than those previously obtained in the ANTARES standard point source searches with non-lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars.They also acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l'energie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; National Authority for Scientific Research (UEFISCDI), Romania; Servicio Publico de Empleo Estatal (SEPE), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN), Prometeo of Generalitat Valenciana and Multi Dark, Spain; Agence de l'Oriental and CNRST, Morocco. We also acknowledge the technical support of Ifremer, AIM and Foselev Marine for the sea operation and the CC-IN2P3 for the computing facilities.Adrián Martínez, S.; Ardid Ramírez, M.; Bou Cabo, M.; Herrero Debón, A.; Martínez Mora, JA.; Albert, A.; André, M.... (2014). Constraining the neutrino emission of gravitationally lensed Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars with ANTARES data. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2014(11):1-11. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2014/11/017111201411Urry, C. M., & Padovani, P. (1995). Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 107, 803. doi:10.1086/133630Böttcher, M. (2006). Astrophysical Jets of Blazars and Microquasars. Astrophysics and Space Science, 307(1-3), 69-75. doi:10.1007/s10509-006-9213-xGaisser, T. K., Halzen, F., & Stanev, T. (1995). Particle astrophysics with high energy neutrinos. Physics Reports, 258(3), 173-236. doi:10.1016/0370-1573(95)00003-yLearned, J. 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