Observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Milky Way Galaxy, providing evidence for diffuse emission from the Galactic plane using advanced deep-learning reconstruction methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel deep-learning-based reconstruction approach and presents the first detection of Galactic neutrinos, advancing understanding of cosmic ray interactions in our galaxy.

Findings

Detection of neutrinos from the Galactic plane at 4.5σ significance

Evidence for diffuse neutrino emission from the Milky Way

Supports the hypothesis of Galactic sources contributing to the neutrino flux

Abstract

IceCube has discovered a flux of astrophysical neutrinos and presented evidence for the first neutrino sources, a flaring blazar known as TXS 0506+056 and the active galaxy NGC 1068. However, the sources responsible for the majority of the astrophysical neutrino flux remain elusive. In addition to hypothetical sources within our Galaxy, high energy neutrinos are produced when cosmic rays interact at their acceleration sites and during propagation through the interstellar medium. The Galactic plane has therefore long been hypothesized as a neutrino source. In this contribution, new results are presented for searches of neutrino sources utilizing a dataset that builds upon recent advances in deep-learning-based reconstruction methods for neutrino-induced cascades. This work presents the first observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Milky Way Galaxy, rejecting the background-only hypothesis at 4.5$\sigma$. The neutrino signal is consistent with diffuse emission from the Galactic plane, potentially in combination with emission by a population of sources.