Jet-cloud/star interaction as an interpretation of neutrino outburst from the blazar TXS 0506+056

TL;DR

This paper proposes that a neutrino outburst from blazar TXS 0506+056 results from jet-cloud/star interactions, explaining the neutrino flux without significant electromagnetic flux increase, based on hadronic interactions and electromagnetic cascades.

Contribution

It introduces a novel jet-cloud/star interaction model to interpret neutrino outbursts in blazars, linking hadronic processes to observed neutrino fluxes without electromagnetic enhancement.

Findings

Neutrino outburst explained by jet interaction with a dense gas cloud.

Electromagnetic radiation remains similar to quiescent state despite neutrino increase.

High-energy neutrinos are produced by high-energy protons maintaining beaming.

Abstract

A neutrino outburst between September 2014 and March 2015 was discovered from the blazar TXS 0506+056 by an investigation of $9.5$ years of IceCube data, while the blazar was in a quiescent state during the outburst with a gamma-ray flux only about one-fifth of the neutrino flux. In this work, we give a possible interpretation of the abnormal feature by proposing that the neutrino outburst originates from the interaction between a relativistic jet and a dense gas cloud formed via the tidally disrupted envelope of a red giant being blown apart by the impact of the jet. Gamma-ray photons and electron/positron pairs that are produced through the hadronuclear interactions correspondingly will induce electromagnetic cascades and then make the cloud ionized and thermalized. The EM radiation from jet-cloud/star interaction is mainly contributed by the relatively low-energy relativistic protons which propagate in the diffusion regime inside the cloud due to magnetic deflections, whereas the observed high-energy neutrinos ($\gtrsim 100\,\rm TeV$) are produced by the relatively high-energy protons which can keep beamed owing to the weak magnetic deflections, inducing a much higher flux of neutrinos than electromagnetic radiation. The observed low-energy electromagnetic radiations during the neutrino outburst period are almost as same as that in the quiescent state of the source, so it may mainly arise as same as the general quiescent state. As a result, due to the intrusion of a dense cloud, the neutrino outburst can be expected, and in the meantime, the accompanying electromagnetic radiations from hadronic processes will not cause any enhancement in the blazar's electromagnetic flux.