All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient

Neutrino Sources
arXiv:2507.08775v1 [astro-ph.HE] 11 Jul 2025

The IceCube Collaboration

(a complete list of authors can be found at the end of the proceedings)

E-mail: jcarpio@icecube.wisc.edu, ali.kheirandish@icecube.wisc.edu,

hmniederhausen@icecube.wisc.edu

Transient sources are among the preferred candidates for the sources of high-energy neutrino
emission. Intriguing examples so far include blazar flares and tidal disruption events coinci-
dent with IceCube neutrinos. Here, we report the first all-flavor, all-sky time-dependent search
for neutrino sources by combining IceCube throughgoing tracks, starting tracks and cascades.
Throughgoing tracks provide the best sensitivity in the Northern Sky, while cascades have worse
angular resolution but yield better sensitivity in the Southern Sky than tracks. The relatively new
starting tracks sample has reduced contamination from atmospheric muons. This analysis takes
advantage of the strengths of each of the datasets, combining them for increased statistics and
obtaining the best accessible all-sky sensitivity for transient searches. In this search, we look for
unbound 𝐸 −𝛾 power-law sources, as well as 𝐸 −2 sources with low and high-energy exponential
cutoffs, optimizing the sensitivity for the duration of the flares.

Corresponding authors: Jose Carpio1∗ , Ali Kheirandish1 , Hans Niederhausen2

1 University of Nevada Las Vegas

2 Michigan State University

∗ Presenter

39th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2025)

15–24 July 2025
Geneva, Switzerland

© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). https://pos.sissa.it/
All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

1. Introduction

Transient neutrino sources, such as blazar flares, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts,
are among the primary candidates for the origin of high-energy neutrino emission [1]. In 2017,
IceCube detected a 290 TeV neutrino spatially coincident with the blazar TXS 0506+056 [2].
Time-integrated searches with 10 years of neutrino tracks showed the transient TXS 0506+056 as
the second most significant source in the Northern Sky [3]. However, the neutrino signal is not
necessarily accompanied by an electromagnetic counterpart, leaving neutrinos as the only way to
observe these sources. These would appear in neutrino data as a clustering of events in the time
domain.
Time-dependent searches provide an advantage over the time-integrated ones, for flares that
last for Δ𝑇 ≲ 100 days, as it reduces the atmospheric neutrino background, which is relatively
uniform in time. Previously, the IceCube collaboration has performed a transient search [4] and
multi-flare search [5], but did not find any new significant excesses.
In this study, we aim for improving upon previous searches by utilizing all channels of obser-
vations to obtain the best accessible sensitivity for IceCube.
Furthermore, neutrino point source searches have usually looked for generic power-law fluxes
−𝛾
𝐸 . However, the expected neutrino flux generally has features beyond a simple power-law. The
IceCube collaboration has used alternative parametrizations for the diffuse neutrino flux (see e.g.,
[6]). More recently, point source searches have also used more sophisticated signal energy spectra,
such as Seyfert flux models to search for neutrino emission from Seyfert galaxies [7]. Here, we
implement a power-law with low and high-energy cutoffs in the search that could capture the
predicted features in prominent transient sources of neutrinos.

2. Method

For the analysis we will use the likelihood (LLH) function L [8]
∑︁ h 𝑛𝑠  𝑛𝑠  i
ln L = ln S𝑖 + 1 − B𝑖 , (1)
𝑖
𝑁 𝑁

where S𝑖 and B𝑖 are the signal and background probability density functions (pdfs), respectively,
for each event 𝑖. The signal pdf can be factorized into a spatial pdf term, which describes the spatial
clustering of the events around the source, an energy pdf term, describing their energy distribution,
and a temporal pdf term, describing the arrival time distribution of the events.
This time-dependent analysis assumes that the temporal pdf follows a Gaussian distribution,
centered at 𝑇0 and a standard deviation 𝜎𝑇 . The spatial pdfs are two-dimensional Gaussians, where
the reconstructed direction has a standard deviation 𝜎𝑖 . The NT sample was later enhanced by using
a Kernel Density Estimate (KDE) so that the spectral shape of the flux is also taken into account,
making the spatial pdf more realistic (see e.g., supplemental material in [9] for a description of the
KDE method).
The energy pdf is the probability that an event is observed with a given energy at a fixed
declination 𝛿 and for a given spectral hypothesis. In the case of 𝐸 −𝛾 power-law sources, this
introduces an additional parameter, the power-law index 𝛾.

2
All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

δ = 0 ◦ , E −2 source 0.10
δ = 0 ◦ , E −2 source
DNN NT + DNN + ESTES NT KDE 90% sensitivity
∆T E 2 dN/dE| 1TeV [GeV cm −2 ]

∆T E 2 dN/dE| 1TeV [GeV cm −2 ]

NT 90% sensitivity NT KDE + DNN + ESTES 3σ evidence potential
ESTES 3σ evidence potential 0.08
100
0.06

10 1 0.04

0.02 ICECUBE PRELIMINARY

ICECUBE PRELIMINARY
2
10 0.00

Combined/NT KDE
1.0 ICECUBE PRELIMINARY 1.0 ICECUBE PRELIMINARY
Combined/NT

0.9 0.9

0.8 3 2 1 0.8
10 10 10 100 101 102 10 3
10 2
10 1
100 101 102
σT [days] σT [days]

Figure 1: Top left panel: Per-flavor 90% CL sensitivity (solid lines) and 3𝜎 evidence (dashed lines) fluences
for an 𝐸 −2 source at declination 𝛿 = 0◦ , for different flare half-widths 𝜎𝑇 and 𝐸 −𝛾 signal flux hypothesis.
The blue, red, orange and black lines correspond to DNNCascade, NT, ESTES and combined datasets,
respectively. Here, the NT sample assumes Gaussian spatial pdfs. Top right panel: Same as top left panel,
but the NT dataset is using KDEs in its spatial and energy pdfs. Bottom left panel: Combined-to-NT fluence
ratios. Bottom right panel: Combined-to-NT KDE fluence ratios

Using L, we define the test statistic

ˆ 𝑇ˆ0 , 𝜎
 
𝜎ˆ 𝑇 L ( 𝑛ˆ 𝑠 , 𝛾, ˆ 𝑇)
TS = 2 ln , (2)
𝑇live L (𝑛𝑠 = 0)

where we used the power-law signal hypothesis as an example. ( 𝑛ˆ 𝑠 , 𝛾, ˆ 𝑇ˆ0 , 𝜎

ˆ 𝑇 ) is the parameter set
that maximizes the term in square brackets. 𝑇live is the livetime of the dataset. The term /𝜎𝑇 /𝑇live is
a factor that penalizes short bursts due to their large trial factors (see e.g., [8]). In our analysis, we
restrict the parameters to 𝑛𝑠 ≥ 0, 𝛾 ∈ [1, 4] (for power-law fits) , 𝜎𝑇 ∈ [0, 𝜎𝑇 ,max ], where 𝜎𝑇 ,max
is half the livetime of the dataset. For the combined dataset, we define 𝜎𝑇 ,max as half the longest
livetime between the datasets.
With the TS defined, we create the background and signal TS distributions by running trials.
The background events within a trial are obtained from scrambled data, whereas the signal events
are obtained from simulations. We define the 90% CL sensitivity as the signal flux required for the
signal TS to be larger than the background median 90% of the time. Additionally, we define the 3𝜎
evidence potential as the injected flux required for the probability of the signal TS to have a 𝑝−value
𝑝 < 2.7 × 10−3 (the 3𝜎 threshold) is equal to 50%. The evidence potential at other significances is
defined in a similar fashion, by modifying the 𝑝−value threshold to the corresponding number of
𝜎.

3
All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

102
δ = − 30 ◦ , σT = 1 day
DNN 90% sensitivity
∆T E 2 dN/dE [GeV cm −2 ] ESTES
DNN+ESTES
3σ evidence potential

101
ICECUBE PRELIMINARY

100

103 104 105 106 107

E [GeV]

Figure 2: Per-flavor 90% CL sensitivity (solid lines) and 3𝜎 evidence potential (dashed lines) fluences to a
neutrino flare of half-width 𝜎𝑇 . The blue, orange and black lines correspond to DNNCascade, ESTES and
combined datasets, respectively.

3. Analysis performance

3.1 Power-law fits

In this section, our signal hypothesis to calculate TS will be a point source with an 𝐸 −𝛾
power-law spectrum, where 𝛾 ∈ [1, 4], where the fit parameters are 𝑛𝑠 , 𝛾, 𝑇0 and 𝜎𝑇 .
We show in Figure 1 the 𝐸 −2 sensitivity and evidence potential for different flare half-widths
𝜎𝑇 , for a source at the horizon. Here we assume 𝐸 −𝛾 signal fluxes, as is typically used in point
source searches. We are reporting fluence (time-integrated fluxes) as Δ𝑇 𝑑𝑁/𝑑𝐸, evaluated at 1
TeV. The left panels show the sensitivity of the DNNCascade, NT and ESTES samples. Here,
the NT data is assuming Gaussian spatial pdfs, not KDEs. The most notable feature is that the
sensitivity worsens for longer-duration flares. For flares shorter than ∼ 0.1 days, the sensitivity
flattens, because we are approaching the background-free regime. Flares longer than 10 days have
more background contamination, degrading the sensitivity. We see that the NT sample provides
the best sensitivity at the horizon among the three datasets, as it has the largest statistics and its
good angular resolution improves the spatial pdfs for signal events. By combining the datasets,
we see a 10% − 15% improvement in sensitivity and evidence potential, but the improvement is
less significant for flares longer than ∼ 1 day. In the right panels of Figure 1, the NT sample uses
KDEs in its signal pdf. This change gives a minor improvement in the sensitivity for flares shorter
than a day. We see that the 3𝜎 evidence potential is at a lower flux than the sensitivity for short
flares, and the two curves cross between 0.1 and 1 day, depending on the sample. Changing the TS
threshold criteria will move the location of the crossing point and is thus dependent on the definition

4
All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

of sensitivity and evidence.

We calculate the differential sensitivity and 3𝜎 evidence potential for a flare with 𝜎𝑇 = 1 day at
a declination 𝛿 = −30◦ . We did this by dividing the energy range into two bins per energy decade,
then injected neutrinos at each bin assuming an 𝐸 −2 spectrum. The result is shown in Figure 2. We
see that both the differential sensitivity and 3𝜎 evidence is best at 𝐸 ∼ 100 TeV. Within this energy
range, the background event rate is low. As we go to higher energies, we see that the sensitivity
worsens. The improvement on the last energy bin is due to the Glashow resonance for cascade
events, where the 𝜈¯𝑒 charged-current interaction cross section is enhanced. The combined analysis
also provides a good improvement when compared to the NT samples alone.

3.2 Two-sided cutoff fits

In this section, we introduce an additional energy pdf for the signal hypothesis: an 𝐸 −2 flux
with two energy cutoffs of the form

𝑒 −𝐸𝐿 /𝐸 𝐸 −2 𝑒 −𝐸/𝐸𝐻 , (3)

where 𝐸 𝐿 and 𝐸 𝐻 are the low and high-energy cutoffs, respectively. We will also refer to this flux
as a two-sided cutoff. The inclusion of 𝐸 𝐻 is motivated by the presence of a maximum cosmic ray
energy, while 𝐸 𝐿 accounts for the minimum proton energy required to initiate 𝑝𝛾 or 𝑝 𝑝 interactions
in the source and lead to neutrino production. The use of a more representative signal hypothesis
allows for a more accurate sensitivity. Based on the differential sensitivities, having a two-sided
cutoff flux that peaks around 100 TeV could potentially be missed in a power-law fit.
With this new flux hypothesis, the power-law index 𝛾 = 2 is fixed when calculating TS. We
restrict 𝐸 𝐿 ∈ [100 GeV, 10 TeV] and 𝐸 𝐻 ∈ [10 TeV, 100 PeV]. When fitting for two-sided cutoffs,
the fit parameters are 𝑛𝑠 , 𝐸 𝐿 , 𝐸 𝐻 , 𝑇0 and 𝜎𝑇 .
We proceed to compare the performance between flux hypotheses. We assume that the true
signal flux is given by Eq. (3), with 𝐸 𝐿 = 1 TeV , 𝐸 𝐻 = 100 TeV. We then compare the 3𝜎 evidence
potential for this injected flux under a two-sided cutoff and a power-law hypothesis separately. First,
we identify the 3𝜎 evidence potential for the two-sided cutoff hypothesis. We then inject this 3𝜎
two-sided cutoff flux, as the true signal flux, and perform a power-law fit instead. Note that by
swapping to a different signal hypothesis, the signal pdfs going into equation (2) have changed, and
thus the TS adopts a different value even if the events in a given trial are the same. Hence, we have to
create new signal and background TS distributions. In a power-law fit, the trials for the injected 3𝜎
two-sided cutoff flux will no longer generate a TS which is 50% of the time above the 3𝜎 threshold
of the new background TS distribution (i.e. it is not a 3𝜎 flux under this new hypothesis). Under
the power-law hypothesis, we can compute the new number of sigma associated with this two-sided
cutoff flux, which we call the recovered significance. In this sense, we say that the 3𝜎 two-sided
cutoff flux has been recovered with a different significance.
We show the significance recovery in Figure 3. For this example, the left (right) panel uses
the DNNCascade (NT) sample only. The NT sample in the right panel does not use KDEs. We
find that a two-sided cutoff flux is not recovered at the 3𝜎 level in power-law searches. In fact, we
only recover it at 1𝜎 for the shortest time windows. As the flare duration increases, the recovery
improves. We found that the TS distribution is not significantly different between signal hypotheses.

5
All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

Figure 3: Recovered significance in power-law fits after injecting the 3𝜎 evidence flux for two-sided cutoffs,
for different flare half-widths 𝜎𝑇 . Left (right) panel corresponds to the DNNCascade (NT) sample.

Hence, the loss in significance is mostly tied to the reconstruction of the signal pdf parameters. The
power-law hypothesis tends to fit for 𝛾 > 2, which causes an overfitting of the signal parameter
𝑛𝑠 . In the case of flares with 𝜎𝑇 ≲ 1 day, the injection of a 3𝜎 two-sided cutoff flux amounts to
injecting ≈ 3 − 4 signal events. For these values of 𝜎𝑇 , the injected number of events is too low for
the LLH to fully take advantage of the background-free regime and reduce the 𝑛𝑠 bias.

4. Conclusions

This is the first multi-flavor time-dependent all-sky point source search. Here we covered the
difference in performance between datasets and its improvement upon combining them. We report
a ≈ 15% improvement in sensitivity and evidence potential for 𝐸 −2 sources at the horizon, when
using the combined dataset. We also find that a power-law fit in our LLH analysis might miss a
two-sided cutoff signal, particularly for flares with 𝜎𝑇 ≲ 1 day.

References

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[3] IceCube Collaboration, M. G. Aartsen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 no. 5, (2020) 051103.

[4] IceCube Collaboration, R. Abbasi et al., Astrophys. J. 967 no. 1, (2024) 48.

[5] IceCube Collaboration, R. Abbasi et al., Astrophys. J. Lett. 920 no. 2, (2021) L45.

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All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

Full Author List: IceCube Collaboration

R. Abbasi16 , M. Ackermann63 , J. Adams17 , S. K. Agarwalla39, a , J. A. Aguilar10 , M. Ahlers21 , J.M. Alameddine22 , S. Ali35 , N. M.
Amin43 , K. Andeen41 , C. Argüelles13 , Y. Ashida52 , S. Athanasiadou63 , S. N. Axani43 , R. Babu23 , X. Bai49 , J. Baines-Holmes39 , A.
Balagopal V.39, 43 , S. W. Barwick29 , S. Bash26 , V. Basu52 , R. Bay6 , J. J. Beatty19, 20 , J. Becker Tjus9, b , P. Behrens1 , J. Beise61 , C.
Bellenghi26 , B. Benkel63 , S. BenZvi51 , D. Berley18 , E. Bernardini47, c , D. Z. Besson35 , E. Blaufuss18 , L. Bloom58 , S. Blot63 , I. Bodo39 ,
F. Bontempo30 , J. Y. Book Motzkin13 , C. Boscolo Meneguolo47, c , S. Böser40 , O. Botner61 , J. Böttcher1 , J. Braun39 , B. Brinson4 ,
Z. Brisson-Tsavoussis32 , R. T. Burley2 , D. Butterfield39 , M. A. Campana48 , K. Carloni13 , J. Carpio33, 34 , S. Chattopadhyay39, a , N.
Chau10 , Z. Chen55 , D. Chirkin39 , S. Choi52 , B. A. Clark18 , A. Coleman61 , P. Coleman1 , G. H. Collin14 , D. A. Coloma Borja47 , A.
Connolly19, 20 , J. M. Conrad14 , R. Corley52 , D. F. Cowen59, 60 , C. De Clercq11 , J. J. DeLaunay59 , D. Delgado13 , T. Delmeulle10 , S.
Deng1 , P. Desiati39 , K. D. de Vries11 , G. de Wasseige36 , T. DeYoung23 , J. C. Díaz-Vélez39 , S. DiKerby23 , M. Dittmer42 , A. Domi25 ,
L. Draper52 , L. Dueser1 , D. Durnford24 , K. Dutta40 , M. A. DuVernois39 , T. Ehrhardt40 , L. Eidenschink26 , A. Eimer25 , P. Eller26 ,
E. Ellinger62 , D. Elsässer22 , R. Engel30, 31 , H. Erpenbeck39 , W. Esmail42 , S. Eulig13 , J. Evans18 , P. A. Evenson43 , K. L. Fan18 , K.
Fang39 , K. Farrag15 , A. R. Fazely5 , A. Fedynitch57 , N. Feigl8 , C. Finley54 , L. Fischer63 , D. Fox59 , A. Franckowiak9 , S. Fukami63 , P.
Fürst1 , J. Gallagher38 , E. Ganster1 , A. Garcia13 , M. Garcia43 , G. Garg39, a , E. Genton13, 36 , L. Gerhardt7 , A. Ghadimi58 , C. Glaser61 ,
T. Glüsenkamp61 , J. G. Gonzalez43 , S. Goswami33, 34 , A. Granados23 , D. Grant12 , S. J. Gray18 , S. Griffin39 , S. Griswold51 , K.
M. Groth21 , D. Guevel39 , C. Günther1 , P. Gutjahr22 , C. Ha53 , C. Haack25 , A. Hallgren61 , L. Halve1 , F. Halzen39 , L. Hamacher1 ,
M. Ha Minh26 , M. Handt1 , K. Hanson39 , J. Hardin14 , A. A. Harnisch23 , P. Hatch32 , A. Haungs30 , J. Häußler1 , K. Helbing62 , J.
Hellrung9 , B. Henke23 , L. Hennig25 , F. Henningsen12 , L. Heuermann1 , R. Hewett17 , N. Heyer61 , S. Hickford62 , A. Hidvegi54 , C.
Hill15 , G. C. Hill2 , R. Hmaid15 , K. D. Hoffman18 , D. Hooper39 , S. Hori39 , K. Hoshina39, d , M. Hostert13 , W. Hou30 , T. Huber30 ,
K. Hultqvist54 , K. Hymon22, 57 , A. Ishihara15 , W. Iwakiri15 , M. Jacquart21 , S. Jain39 , O. Janik25 , M. Jansson36 , M. Jeong52 , M.
Jin13 , N. Kamp13 , D. Kang30 , W. Kang48 , X. Kang48 , A. Kappes42 , L. Kardum22 , T. Karg63 , M. Karl26 , A. Karle39 , A. Katil24 ,
M. Kauer39 , J. L. Kelley39 , M. Khanal52 , A. Khatee Zathul39 , A. Kheirandish33, 34 , H. Kimku53 , J. Kiryluk55 , C. Klein25 , S. R.
Klein6, 7 , Y. Kobayashi15 , A. Kochocki23 , R. Koirala43 , H. Kolanoski8 , T. Kontrimas26 , L. Köpke40 , C. Kopper25 , D. J. Koskinen21 ,
P. Koundal43 , M. Kowalski8, 63 , T. Kozynets21 , N. Krieger9 , J. Krishnamoorthi39, a , T. Krishnan13 , K. Kruiswijk36 , E. Krupczak23 ,
A. Kumar63 , E. Kun9 , N. Kurahashi48 , N. Lad63 , C. Lagunas Gualda26 , L. Lallement Arnaud10 , M. Lamoureux36 , M. J. Larson18 ,
F. Lauber62 , J. P. Lazar36 , K. Leonard DeHolton60 , A. Leszczyńska43 , J. Liao4 , C. Lin43 , Y. T. Liu60 , M. Liubarska24 , C. Love48 ,
L. Lu39 , F. Lucarelli27 , W. Luszczak19, 20 , Y. Lyu6, 7 , J. Madsen39 , E. Magnus11 , K. B. M. Mahn23 , Y. Makino39 , E. Manao26 ,
S. Mancina47, e , A. Mand39 , I. C. Mariş10 , S. Marka45 , Z. Marka45 , L. Marten1 , I. Martinez-Soler13 , R. Maruyama44 , J. Mauro36 ,
F. Mayhew23 , F. McNally37 , J. V. Mead21 , K. Meagher39 , S. Mechbal63 , A. Medina20 , M. Meier15 , Y. Merckx11 , L. Merten9 , J.
Mitchell5 , L. Molchany49 , T. Montaruli27 , R. W. Moore24 , Y. Morii15 , A. Mosbrugger25 , M. Moulai39 , D. Mousadi63 , E. Moyaux36 ,
T. Mukherjee30 , R. Naab63 , M. Nakos39 , U. Naumann62 , J. Necker63 , L. Neste54 , M. Neumann42 , H. Niederhausen23 , M. U. Nisa23 ,
K. Noda15 , A. Noell1 , A. Novikov43 , A. Obertacke Pollmann15 , V. O’Dell39 , A. Olivas18 , R. Orsoe26 , J. Osborn39 , E. O’Sullivan61 ,
V. Palusova40 , H. Pandya43 , A. Parenti10 , N. Park32 , V. Parrish23 , E. N. Paudel58 , L. Paul49 , C. Pérez de los Heros61 , T. Pernice63 ,
J. Peterson39 , M. Plum49 , A. Pontén61 , V. Poojyam58 , Y. Popovych40 , M. Prado Rodriguez39 , B. Pries23 , R. Procter-Murphy18 , G. T.
Przybylski7 , L. Pyras52 , C. Raab36 , J. Rack-Helleis40 , N. Rad63 , M. Ravn61 , K. Rawlins3 , Z. Rechav39 , A. Rehman43 , I. Reistroffer49 ,
E. Resconi26 , S. Reusch63 , C. D. Rho56 , W. Rhode22 , L. Ricca36 , B. Riedel39 , A. Rifaie62 , E. J. Roberts2 , S. Robertson6, 7 , M.
Rongen25 , A. Rosted15 , C. Rott52 , T. Ruhe22 , L. Ruohan26 , D. Ryckbosch28 , J. Saffer31 , D. Salazar-Gallegos23 , P. Sampathkumar30 , A.
Sandrock62 , G. Sanger-Johnson23 , M. Santander58 , S. Sarkar46 , J. Savelberg1 , M. Scarnera36 , P. Schaile26 , M. Schaufel1 , H. Schieler30 ,
S. Schindler25 , L. Schlickmann40 , B. Schlüter42 , F. Schlüter10 , N. Schmeisser62 , T. Schmidt18 , F. G. Schröder30, 43 , L. Schumacher25 ,
S. Schwirn1 , S. Sclafani18 , D. Seckel43 , L. Seen39 , M. Seikh35 , S. Seunarine50 , P. A. Sevle Myhr36 , R. Shah48 , S. Shefali31 , N.
Shimizu15 , B. Skrzypek6 , R. Snihur39 , J. Soedingrekso22 , A. Søgaard21 , D. Soldin52 , P. Soldin1 , G. Sommani9 , C. Spannfellner26 ,
G. M. Spiczak50 , C. Spiering63 , J. Stachurska28 , M. Stamatikos20 , T. Stanev43 , T. Stezelberger7 , T. Stürwald62 , T. Stuttard21 , G. W.
Sullivan18 , I. Taboada4 , S. Ter-Antonyan5 , A. Terliuk26 , A. Thakuri49 , M. Thiesmeyer39 , W. G. Thompson13 , J. Thwaites39 , S. Tilav43 ,
K. Tollefson23 , S. Toscano10 , D. Tosi39 , A. Trettin63 , A. K. Upadhyay39, a , K. Upshaw5 , A. Vaidyanathan41 , N. Valtonen-Mattila9, 61 , J.
Valverde41 , J. Vandenbroucke39 , T. van Eeden63 , N. van Eijndhoven11 , L. van Rootselaar22 , J. van Santen63 , F. J. Vara Carbonell42 , F.
Varsi31 , M. Venugopal30 , M. Vereecken36 , S. Vergara Carrasco17 , S. Verpoest43 , D. Veske45 , A. Vijai18 , J. Villarreal14 , C. Walck54 , A.
Wang4 , E. Warrick58 , C. Weaver23 , P. Weigel14 , A. Weindl30 , J. Weldert40 , A. Y. Wen13 , C. Wendt39 , J. Werthebach22 , M. Weyrauch30 ,
N. Whitehorn23 , C. H. Wiebusch1 , D. R. Williams58 , L. Witthaus22 , M. Wolf26 , G. Wrede25 , X. W. Xu5 , J. P. Yañez24 , Y. Yao39 ,
E. Yildizci39 , S. Yoshida15 , R. Young35 , F. Yu13 , S. Yu52 , T. Yuan39 , A. Zegarelli9 , S. Zhang23 , Z. Zhang55 , P. Zhelnin13 , P. Zilberman39

1 III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

2 Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 5005, Australia
3 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK 99508, USA
4 School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
5 Dept. of Physics, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA 70813, USA
6 Dept. of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
7 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
8 Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, D-12489 Berlin, Germany
9 Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany
10 Université Libre de Bruxelles, Science Faculty CP230, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

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All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

11 Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Dienst ELEM, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

12 Dept. of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada
13 Department of Physics and Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
14 Dept. of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
15 Dept. of Physics and The International Center for Hadron Astrophysics, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan
16 Department of Physics, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL 60660, USA
17 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
18 Dept. of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
19 Dept. of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
20 Dept. of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
21 Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
22 Dept. of Physics, TU Dortmund University, D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
23 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
24 Dept. of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada
25 Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
26 Physik-department, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany
27 Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève, Switzerland
28 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, B-9000 Gent, Belgium
29 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
30 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Astroparticle Physics, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
31 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Experimental Particle Physics, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
32 Dept. of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
33 Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
34 Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
35 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
36 Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology - CP3, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
37 Department of Physics, Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207-0001, USA
38 Dept. of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
39 Dept. of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, WI 53706,

USA
40 Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany
41 Department of Physics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA
42 Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Münster, D-48149 Münster, Germany
43 Bartol Research Institute and Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
44 Dept. of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
45 Columbia Astrophysics and Nevis Laboratories, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
46 Dept. of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
47 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia Galileo Galilei, Università Degli Studi di Padova, I-35122 Padova PD, Italy
48 Dept. of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
49 Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701, USA
50 Dept. of Physics, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, WI 54022, USA
51 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
52 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
53 Dept. of Physics, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea
54 Oskar Klein Centre and Dept. of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
55 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800, USA
56 Dept. of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
57 Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan
58 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
59 Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
60 Dept. of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
61 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden
62 Dept. of Physics, University of Wuppertal, D-42119 Wuppertal, Germany
63 Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Platanenallee 6, D-15738 Zeuthen, Germany
a also at Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School Post, Bhubaneswar 751005, India
b also at Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
c also at INFN Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy
d also at Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan
e now at INFN Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy

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All-flavor Time-dependent Search for Transient Neutrino Sources

Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the following agencies and institutions: USA – U.S. National Science Foundation-
Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, U.S. National
Science Foundation-Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput
Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing
(PATh), Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS), Frontera and Ranch computing
project at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, U.S. Department of Energy-National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center,
Particle astrophysics research computing center at the University of Maryland, Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research at Michigan State
University, Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University, NVIDIA Corporation, and Google Cloud Platform;
Belgium – Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal
Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany – Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR), Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz
Association, Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY), and High Performance Computing cluster of the RWTH Aachen; Sweden –
Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and
Alice Wallenberg Foundation; European Union – EGI Advanced Computing for research; Australia – Australian Research Council;
Canada – Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Québec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for
Innovation, WestGrid, and Digital Research Alliance of Canada; Denmark – Villum Fonden, Carlsberg Foundation, and European
Commission; New Zealand – Marsden Fund; Japan – Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent
Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea – National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland – Swiss National Science
Foundation (SNSF).

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