High-energy Neutrino Emission from NGC 1068 by Outflow-cloud Interactions

TL;DR

This paper proposes an outflow-cloud interaction model in NGC 1068's AGN core to explain its high-energy neutrino emission, suggesting neutrinos originate from shock-accelerated protons interacting with surrounding matter and photons.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel outflow-cloud interaction model that accounts for neutrino production in NGC 1068, aligning theoretical predictions with IceCube observations.

Findings

Neutrino flux matches IceCube data in the 1-30 TeV range.

Predicted gamma-ray emission is suppressed due to photon absorption.

Model explains the high-energy neutrino emission without corresponding gamma-ray signals.

Abstract

As the hottest high-energy neutrino spot, NGC 1068 has received much attention in recent years. Here we focus on the central region of the active galactic nuclei (AGN) and propose an outflow-cloud interaction model that could probably explain the observed neutrino data. Considering the accretion process adjacent to the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) of NGC 1068, strong outflows will be generated, which will likely interact with surrounding clouds floating in the corona region. Particles carried by the outflow will be accelerated to very high energy by the shocks forming during the outflow-cloud interactions. For the accelerated high-energy protons, $p\gamma$ interactions with the background photon field of the corona and disk and $pp$ interaction with the surrounding gas will produce considerable high-energy $\gamma$-rays and neutrino. However, because of the extremely dense photon fields in the corona and disk, the newly generated $\gamma$-rays will be significantly attenuated through the $\gamma\gamma$ absorptions. In our scenario, the expected GeV-TeV $\gamma$-ray emission will be suppressed to a much lower level than the neutrino emission, consistent with the observational characteristics of NGC 1068, while the generated 1-30\,TeV neutrino flux can fit the IceCube data very well.