High-Energy Neutrinos from Magnetized Coronae of Active Galactic Nuclei and Prospects for Identification of Seyfert Galaxies and Quasars in Neutrino Telescopes

TL;DR

This paper assesses the potential of magnetized coronae of active galactic nuclei, especially Seyfert galaxies, as sources of high-energy neutrinos, highlighting promising targets for current and future neutrino telescopes.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed evaluation of neutrino detectability from Seyfert galaxies using the disk-corona model and discusses prospects for identifying these sources with next-generation detectors.

Findings

NGC 1068 is the most promising Seyfert galaxy for IceCube detection.

Nearby Seyfert galaxies are promising targets for KM3NeT and IceCube-Gen2.

Cen A could be identified as a neutrino source within a few years with KM3NeT.

Abstract

Particles may be accelerated in magnetized coronae via magnetic reconnections and/or plasma turbulence, leading to high-energy neutrinos and soft gamma rays. We evaluate the detectability of neutrinos from nearby bright Seyfert galaxies identified by X-ray measurements. In the disk-corona model, we find that NGC 1068 is the most promising Seyfert galaxy in the Northern sky, where IceCube is the most sensitive, and show prospects for the identification of aggregated neutrino signals from Seyfert galaxies bright in X-rays. Moreover, we demonstrate that nearby Seyfert galaxies are promising targets for the next generation of neutrino telescopes such as KM3NeT and IceCube-Gen2. For KM3NeT, Cen A can be the most promising source in the Southern sky if a significant fraction of the observed X-rays come from the corona, and it could be identified in few years of KM3NeT operation. Our results reinforce the idea that hidden cores of supermassive black holes are the dominant sources of the high-energy neutrino emission and underlines the necessity of better sensitivity to medium-energy ranges in future neutrino detectors for identifying the origin of high-energy cosmic neutrinos.