Improving Neutrino Point Source Sensitivity with Source-Informed Event Selection
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866917389737656320 |
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| author | Lazar, Jeffrey Argüelles, Carlos A. Zhelnin, Pavel |
| author_facet | Lazar, Jeffrey Argüelles, Carlos A. Zhelnin, Pavel |
| contents | Neutrino telescopes employ multi-level reconstruction chains, where computationally expensive high-quality reconstructions are applied only to events that survive initial quality cuts based on fast, coarse directional estimates. Currently, event selection between reconstruction levels is source-agnostic, giving no priority to events from directions of known neutrino source candidates. We propose a simple modification to inter-level event selection: preferentially retain events whose early-level reconstruction places them within an angular tolerance of pre-specified candidate source directions from established multi-messenger catalogs, while continuing to subsample remaining events at the baseline rate. Using a realistic two-level detector model with energy-dependent angular resolution, we show that this source-informed selection can improve median point source sensitivity by factors of $\sim 2$--$3$ compared to uniform subsampling, with the improvement depending on the baseline selection efficiency, angular tolerance, and correlation between reconstruction qualities at different levels. For catalogs of $\mathcal{O}(100)$ sources, the additional computational overhead is modest ($\sim 7$--$14\%$). This approach offers a path to substantially enhance the discovery potential of current and future neutrino telescopes without requiring new detector capabilities. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_06509 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Improving Neutrino Point Source Sensitivity with Source-Informed Event Selection Lazar, Jeffrey Argüelles, Carlos A. Zhelnin, Pavel High Energy Physics - Experiment Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Neutrino telescopes employ multi-level reconstruction chains, where computationally expensive high-quality reconstructions are applied only to events that survive initial quality cuts based on fast, coarse directional estimates. Currently, event selection between reconstruction levels is source-agnostic, giving no priority to events from directions of known neutrino source candidates. We propose a simple modification to inter-level event selection: preferentially retain events whose early-level reconstruction places them within an angular tolerance of pre-specified candidate source directions from established multi-messenger catalogs, while continuing to subsample remaining events at the baseline rate. Using a realistic two-level detector model with energy-dependent angular resolution, we show that this source-informed selection can improve median point source sensitivity by factors of $\sim 2$--$3$ compared to uniform subsampling, with the improvement depending on the baseline selection efficiency, angular tolerance, and correlation between reconstruction qualities at different levels. For catalogs of $\mathcal{O}(100)$ sources, the additional computational overhead is modest ($\sim 7$--$14\%$). This approach offers a path to substantially enhance the discovery potential of current and future neutrino telescopes without requiring new detector capabilities. |
| title | Improving Neutrino Point Source Sensitivity with Source-Informed Event Selection |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Experiment Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06509 |