A method for untriggered time-dependent searches for multiple flares from neutrino point sources

A method for a time-dependent search for flaring astrophysical sources which can be potentially detected by large neutrino experiments is presented. The method uses a time-clustering algorithm combined with an unbinned likelihood procedure. By including in the likelihood function a signal term which describes the contribution of many small clusters of signal-like events, this method provides an effective way for looking for weak neutrino flares over different time-scales. The method is sensitive to an overall excess of events distributed over several flares which are not individually detectable. For standard cases (one flare) the discovery potential of the method is worse than a standard time-dependent point source analysis with unknown duration of the flare by a factor depending on the signal-to-background level. However, for flares sufficiently shorter than the total observation period, the method is more sensitive than a time-integrated analysis.