Detection Potential of the KM3NeT Detector for High-Energy Neutrinos from the Fermi Bubbles

TL;DR

This study evaluates KM3NeT's potential to detect high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles, suggesting possible discovery within a year if the gamma-ray emission is hadronic in origin.

Contribution

It presents Monte Carlo simulations estimating the detectability of neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles with KM3NeT, considering different spectral cutoffs and hadronic emission scenarios.

Findings

Neutrinos could be detected within about one year under certain conditions.

Detection is feasible if the gamma-ray emission is hadronic and the spectrum extends to 100 TeV.

Lower spectral cutoffs reduce the detection likelihood.

Abstract

A recent analysis of the Fermi Large Area Telescope data provided evidence for a high-intensity emission of high-energy gamma rays with a E^-2 spectrum from two large areas, spanning 50{\deg} above and below the Galactic centre (the "Fermi bubbles"). A hadronic mechanism was proposed for this gamma-ray emission making the Fermi bubbles promising source candidates of high-energy neutrino emission. In this work Monte Carlo simulations regarding the detectability of high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles with the future multi-km^3 neutrino telescope KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea are presented. Under the hypothesis that the gamma-ray emission is completely due to hadronic processes, the results indicate that neutrinos from the bubbles could be discovered in about one year of operation, for a neutrino spectrum with a cutoff at 100 TeV and a detector with about 6 km^3 of instrumented volume. The effect of a possible lower cutoff is also considered.