Constraining photohadronic scenarios for the unified origin of IceCube neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays

TL;DR

This paper develops a unified model explaining the origins of IceCube neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, constraining source properties and identifying potential astrophysical sources like low-luminosity GRBs and TDEs.

Contribution

It introduces a generic unification framework for sources producing both neutrinos and cosmic rays, with constraints on source environments and parameters for high-energy particle acceleration.

Findings

Moderately efficient in-situ neutrino production is required.

Source luminosity and rate density are constrained by observed fluxes.

Low-luminosity GRBs and TDEs are plausible sources under certain conditions.

Abstract

The diffuse neutrino flux measured in IceCube is comparable with the ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) flux, which has led to the concept of a unified origin of high-energy neutrino and UHECR backgrounds. We construct a generic unification model of sources to explain UHECR data at $\gtrsim 10^{19}$ eV, and high-energy neutrinos with energies that exceed $\sim100$ TeV in the framework of photo-meson production processes, and provide general constraints on the source properties. A source environment with moderately efficient in-situ production of $\gtrsim 100$ TeV neutrinos with an optical depth of $0.1 \lesssim \tau_{p\gamma}\lesssim 0.6$ must be realized to accelerate cosmic rays to ultrahigh energies. The measured fluxes of cosmic rays and neutrinos set a bound on the source luminosity and its rate density. Although the results are rather general and applicable to unknown source population, among the proposed source candidates, low-luminosity gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and tidal disruption events (TDEs) could satisfy the requirements if the Lorentz bulk factor of plasma outflow and the equipartition parameters for cosmic rays and magnetic field are appropriately selected.