Diffuse flux of PeV neutrinos from centrifugally accelerated protons in active galactic nuclei

TL;DR

This paper proposes a model where centrifugally accelerated protons in active galactic nuclei produce PeV neutrinos, aligning theoretical flux estimates with IceCube observations under specific luminosity assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces a new mechanism linking AGN proton acceleration to PeV neutrino production, consistent with IceCube data using the LDDE luminosity function model.

Findings

Estimated neutrino flux matches IceCube observations with 6.56% of AGN luminosity.

Protons can reach energies above 0.1 EeV in AGN environments.

A small fraction of AGN bolometric luminosity can account for observed PeV neutrinos.

Abstract

Evidence for high-energy astrophysical PeV neutrinos has been found in the IceCube experiment from an analysis with a 7.5 year (2010 - 2017) data. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are among the most prominent objects in the universe, and are widely speculated to be emitters of ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays with proton domination. Based on the standard two-step LLCD mechanism of particle acceleration, a transformation of energy occurs from AGN's central super-massive black hole (SMBH) rotation to high-energy protons. Protons can be accelerated up to $\sim 0.1$ EeV energies and above, and might generate PeV neutrinos in the energy range $1$--$10$~ PeV through plausible hadronic interactions. The theoretically estimated revised extragalactic diffuse muon neutrino flux employing the "luminosity-dependent density evolution (LDDE)" model for the AGN luminosity function (LF) is found consistent with the IceCube level if only a fraction, $6.56\%$ of the total bolometric luminosity (BL) of AGN is being realizable to power the PeV neutrinos. In the $\Lambda$~CDM cosmological framework with the LDDE modeled LF and photon index distribution, about $5.18\%$ of the total BL is enough to power the IceCube neutrinos.