Constraining MeV Neutrino Emission of Bright Transients with IceCube

TL;DR

This paper discusses how IceCube can detect or constrain MeV neutrino emissions from astrophysical transients like stellar collapses, despite the detection challenges posed by small cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces IceCube's MeV neutrino detection system and provides results from various astrophysical transient categories, setting constraints on neutrino production mechanisms.

Findings

IceCube can detect MeV neutrino bursts from nearby transients.

Non-observation constrains models of neutrino production in astrophysical events.

Results include limits on neutrino fluxes from different transient types.

Abstract

MeV neutrinos are produced in many astrophysical transients, such as stellar collapses and high-energy jets, where they play a role in sustaining and cooling energetic explosions. Detecting these neutrinos from sources outside the Milky Way is very difficult due to the small neutrino-nucleon cross section at MeV. Nevertheless, the non-observation of MeV neutrinos from high-energy transients may provide useful constraints on related neutrino production mechanisms where significant MeV production is expected. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic kilometer neutrino detector operating with nearly 100% uptime at the South Pole, is sensitive to bursts of MeV neutrinos from astrophysical sources in and beyond the Milky Way. In this work, we describe the MeV neutrino detection system of IceCube and show results from several categories of astrophysical transients.