IceCube PeV Cascade Events Initiated by Electron-Antineutrinos at Glashow Resonance

TL;DR

This paper interprets IceCube's PeV cascade events as resulting from electron-antineutrinos interacting via the Glashow resonance, linking high-energy cosmic rays with neutrino physics and predicting higher event rates from W boson decays.

Contribution

It proposes a novel explanation for IceCube's PeV events involving the Glashow resonance and predicts increased event rates from W boson decays, connecting cosmic ray origins with neutrino interactions.

Findings

PeV cascade events can be explained by electron-antineutrinos at Glashow resonance.

Predicted higher event rate from W to hadron decays at 6.3 PeV.

Supports a common origin for cosmic rays and neutrino events.

Abstract

We propose an interpretation of the two neutrino initiated cascade events with PeV energies observed by IceCube: Ultra-high energy cosmic ray protons (or Fe nuclei) scatter on CMB photons through the Delta-resonance (the Berezinsky-Zatsepin process) yielding charged pions and neutrons. The neutron decays give electron-antineutrinos which undergo neutrino oscillations to populate all antineutrino flavors, but the electron-antineutrino flux remains dominant. At 6.3 PeV electron-antineutrino energy their annihilation on electrons in the IceCube detector is enhanced by the Glashow resonance (the W-boson) whose decays can give the PeV showers observed in the IceCube detector. The two observed showers with ~1 PeV energies would need to be from W leptonic decays to electrons and taus. An order of magnitude higher event rate of showers at 6.3 PeV is predicted from W to hadron decays. This interpretation can be tested in the near term. It has significant physics implications on the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, since neutrino events and cosmic ray events likely share a common origin.