With the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, we searched for correlations between neutrinos and tidal disruption events (TDEs). TDEs occur when stars pass close to black holes, and the tidal forces shred the star. This was the first search for neutrinos from TDEs, and no significant correlation was found. We set limits on the contribution of TDEs to the astrophysical neutrino flux. Those TDEs with relativistic jets contribute <1.3% of the total, while those without jets contribute <26% of the total. You can see those limits here:
We also looked for neutrinos from the mysterious AT2018cow, an object discovered in May 2018. We still aren’t clear what it actually was, with suggestions that it might have been a new class of TDE, an extreme supernove, or a magnetar. We found no significant neutrino excess, and set limits on neutrino emission for a variety of neutrino spectra:
These results were published in proceedings of the 36th International Cosmic Ray conference (ICRC 2019), hosted in Madison, WI, USA.