Angular correlation of cosmic neutrinos with ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays and implications for their sources

TL;DR

This study investigates the correlation between cosmic neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays to identify common astrophysical sources, revealing a significant directional correlation and potential source candidates like Seyfert galaxies.

Contribution

It demonstrates a statistical correlation between IceCube neutrinos and UHECRs above 100 EeV, identifying candidate sources and analyzing their luminosities and acceleration capabilities.

Findings

Neutrino and UHECR arrival directions are correlated at 93% confidence for energies ≥100 EeV.

No correlation observed at energies around 60 EeV.

Identified potential sources, mainly Seyfert galaxies, including Cygnus A.

Abstract

Cosmic neutrino events detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory with energy $\gtrsim 30$ TeV have poor angular resolutions to reveal their origin. Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), with better angular resolutions at $>60$ EeV energies, can be used to check if the same astrophysical sources are responsible for producing both neutrinos and UHECRs. We test this hypothesis, with statistical methods which emphasize invariant quantities, by using data from the Pierre Auger Observatory, Telescope Array and past cosmic-ray experiments. We find that the arrival directions of the cosmic neutrinos are correlated with $\ge 100$ EeV UHECR arrival directions at confidence level $\approx 93\%$. The strength of the correlation decreases with decreasing UHECR energy and no correlation exists at energy $\sim 60$ EeV. A search in astrophysical databases within $3^\circ$ of the arrival directions of UHECRs with energy $\ge 100$ EeV, that are correlated with the IceCube cosmic neutrinos, resulted in 18 sources from the Swift-BAT X-ray catalog with redshift $z\le 0.06$. We also found 3 objects in the K\"uhr catalog of radio sources using the same criteria. The sources are dominantly Seyfert galaxies with Cygnus A being the most prominent member. We calculate the required neutrino and UHECR fluxes to produce the observed correlated events, and estimate the corresponding neutrino luminosity (25 TeV-2.2 PeV) and cosmic-ray luminosity (500 TeV-180 EeV), assuming the sources are the ones we found in the Swift-BAT and K\"uhr catalogs. We compare these luminosities with the X-ray luminosity of the corresponding sources and discuss possibilities of accelerating protons to $\gtrsim 100$ EeV and produce neutrinos in these sources.