High-Energy Neutrino Emission in NGC1068 driven by Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection

TL;DR

This paper models high-energy neutrino emission from NGC 1068, proposing turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection as the acceleration mechanism, and successfully reproduces IceCube neutrino flux data.

Contribution

It introduces a refined lepto-hadronic model based on magnetic reconnection, with a focus on the inner accretion disk region, to explain neutrino emission in NGC 1068.

Findings

Model reproduces IceCube neutrino flux excess.

Neutrino production constrained by Fermi acceleration timescale.

Inner disk region placement affects neutrino emission estimates.

Abstract

Astrophysical neutrinos from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) offer a unique window into high-energy particle acceleration in obscured environments. The nearby Type II Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068 is a compelling example, exhibiting evidence of a high-energy neutrino excess without an associated TeV $\gamma$-ray counterpart. This suggests that hadronic processes may occur within an inner, magnetically dominated region, where the TeV emission is suppressed by $\gamma \gamma$ absorption and reprocessed via electromagnetic cascades in the dense, obscured environment. Building on our framework, which establishes turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection as the main driver for particle acceleration in this source, we present a refined lepto-hadronic model based on de Gouveia Dal Pino & Lazarian (2005) and Kadowaki et al. (2015). In these proceedings, we adopt a conservative inner disk radius compared to our previous results, moving the acceleration region further from the innermost stable circular orbit. We estimate the high-energy neutrino emission from hadronic and photo-hadronic processes, constrained by the acceleration timescale for first-order Fermi acceleration within the turbulent current sheet. The estimated model reproduces the IceCube neutrino flux excess, providing an essential technical complement and validation for our forthcoming comprehensive publication.