Observation of the cosmic ray shadow of the Sun with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

Abstract

The ANTARES detector is an undersea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. The search for pointlike neutrino sources is one of the main goals of the ANTARES telescope, requiring a reliable method to evaluate the detector angular resolution and pointing accuracy. This work describes the study of the Sun "shadow"effect with the ANTARES detector. The shadow is the deficit in the atmospheric muon flux in the direction of the Sun caused by the absorption of the primary cosmic rays. This analysis is based on the data collected between 2008 and 2017 by the ANTARES telescope. The observed statistical significance of the Sun shadow detection is 3.7σ, with an estimated angular resolution of 0.59°±0.10° for downward-going muons. The pointing accuracy is found to be consistent with the expectations and no evidence of systematic pointing shifts is observed.