We consider implications of high-energy neutrino emission from blazar flares, including the recent event IceCube-170922A and the 2014-2015 neutrino flare that could originate from TXS 0506+056. ...First, we discuss their contribution to the diffuse neutrino intensity taking into account various observational constraints. Blazars are likely to be subdominant in the diffuse neutrino intensity at sub-PeV energies, and we show that blazar flares like those of TXS 0506+056 could make 1%-10% of the total neutrino intensity. We also argue that the neutrino output of blazars can be dominated by the flares in the standard leptonic scenario for their γ-ray emission, and energetic flares may still be detected with a rate of . Second, we consider multi-messenger constraints on the source modeling. We show that luminous neutrino flares should be accompanied by luminous broadband cascade emission, emerging also in X-rays and γ-rays. This implies that not only γ-ray telescopes like Fermi but also X-ray sky monitors such as Swift and MAXI are critical to test the canonical picture based on the single-zone modeling. We also suggest a two-zone model that can naturally satisfy the X-ray constraints while explaining the flaring neutrinos via either photomeson or hadronuclear processes.
Abstract
Gamma-ray flares of blazars may be accompanied by high-energy neutrinos due to interactions of high-energy cosmic rays in the jet with photons, as suggested by the detection of the ...high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A during a major gamma-ray flare from blazar TXS 0506+056 at the ∼3
σ
significance level. In this work, we present a statistical study of gamma-ray emission from blazars to constrain the contribution of gamma-ray flares to their neutrino output. We construct weekly binned light curves for 145 gamma-ray bright blazars in the Fermi Large Area Telescope Monitored Source List adding TXS 0506+056. We derive the fraction of time spent in the flaring state (flare duty cycle) and the fraction of energy released during each flare from the light curves with a Bayesian blocks algorithm. We find that blazars with lower flare duty cycles and energy fractions are more numerous among our sample. We identify a significant difference in flare duty cycles between blazar subclasses at a significance level of 5%. Then using a general scaling relation for the neutrino and gamma-ray luminosities,
L
ν
∝
(
L
γ
)
γ
with a weighting exponent of
γ
= 1.0–2.0, normalized to the quiescent gamma-ray or X-ray flux of each blazar, we evaluate the neutrino energy flux of each gamma-ray flare. The gamma-ray flare distribution indicates that blazar neutrino emission may be dominated by flares for
γ
≳ 1.5. The neutrino energy fluxes for 1 week and 10 yr bins are compared with the decl.-dependent IceCube sensitivity to constrain the standard neutrino emission models for gamma-ray flares. Finally, we present the upper-limit contribution of blazar gamma-ray flares to the isotropic diffuse neutrino flux.
ABSTRACT
Motivated by the recently reported evidence of an association between a high-energy neutrino and a γ-ray flare from the blazar TXS 0506+056, we calculate the expected high-energy neutrino ...signal from past, individual flares, from 12 blazars, selected in declinations favourable for detection with IceCube. To keep the number of free parameters to a minimum, we mainly focus on BL Lac objects and assume the synchrotron self-Compton mechanism produces the bulk of the high-energy emission. We consider a broad range of the allowed parameter space for the efficiency of proton acceleration, the proton content of BL Lac jets, and the presence of external photon fields. To model the expected neutrino fluence, we use simultaneous multiwavelength observations. We find that in the absence of external photon fields and with jet proton luminosity normalized to match the observed production rate of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, individual flaring sources produce a modest neutrino flux in IceCube, $N^{\mathrm{IC,10 \,yr}}_{\nu _{\mu },{\mathrm{\gt 100~TeV}}} \lesssim 10^{-3}$ muon neutrinos with energy exceeding 100 TeV, stacking 10 yr of flare periods selected in the >800 MeV Fermi energy range, from each source. Under optimistic assumptions about the jet proton luminosity and in the presence of external photon fields, we find that the two most powerful sources in our sample, AO 0235+164, and OJ 287, would produce, in total, $N^{\mathrm{IC \times 10,10 \,yr}}_{\nu _{\mu }, \rm all~flares, \gt 100~TeV} \approx 3$ muon neutrinos during Fermi flaring periods, in future neutrino detectors with total instrumented volume ∼10 times larger than IceCube, or otherwise, constrain the proton luminosity of blazar jets.
The IceCube collaboration reported an ∼3.5 excess of 13 5 neutrino events in the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 during an ∼6 month period in 2014-2015, as well as the (∼3 ) detection of a ...high-energy muon neutrino during an electromagnetic flare in 2017. We explore the possibility that the 2014-2015 neutrino excess and the 2017 multimessenger flare are both explained in a common physical framework that relies on the emergence of a relativistic neutral beam in the blazar jet due to interactions of accelerated cosmic rays (CRs) with photons. We demonstrate that the neutral beam model provides an explanation for the 2014-2015 neutrino excess without violating X-ray and γ-ray constraints and yields results consistent with the detection of one high-energy neutrino during the 2017 flare. If both neutrino associations with TXS 05065+056 are real, our model requires that (i) the composition of accelerated CRs is light, with a ratio of helium nuclei to protons 5; (ii) a luminous external photon field (∼1046 erg s−1) variable (on yearlong timescales) is present; and (iii) the CR injection luminosity, as well as the properties of the dissipation region (i.e., Lorentz factor, magnetic field, and size), vary on yearlong timescales.
Abstract
Tidal disruption events (TDE) have been considered as cosmic-ray and neutrino sources for a decade. We suggest two classes of new scenarios for high-energy multi-messenger emission from TDEs ...that do not have to harbor powerful jets. First, we investigate high-energy neutrino and gamma-ray production in the core region of a supermassive black hole. In particular, we show that ∼1–100 TeV neutrinos and MeV gamma rays can efficiently be produced in hot coronae around an accretion disk. We also study the consequences of particle acceleration in radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs). Second, we consider possible cosmic-ray acceleration by sub-relativistic disk-driven winds or interactions between tidal streams, and show that subsequent hadronuclear and photohadronic interactions inside the TDE debris lead to GeV-PeV neutrinos and sub-GeV cascade gamma rays. We demonstrate that these models should be accompanied by soft gamma rays or hard X-rays as well as optical/UV emission, which can be used for future observational tests. Although this work aims to present models of non-jetted high-energy emission, we discuss the implications of the TDE AT2019dsg that might coincide with the high-energy neutrino IceCube-191001A, by considering the corona, RIAF, hidden sub-relativistic wind, and hidden jet models. It is not yet possible to be conclusive about their physical association and the expected number of neutrinos is typically much less than unity. We find that the most optimistic cases of the corona and hidden wind models could be consistent with the observation of IceCube-191001A, whereas jet models are unlikely to explain the multi-messenger observations.
3HSP J095507.9+355101 is an extreme blazar that has been possibly associated with a high-energy neutrino (IceCube-200107A) detected 1 day before the blazar was found to undergo a hard X-ray flare. We ...perform a comprehensive study of the predicted multimessenger emission from 3HSP J095507.9+355101 during its recent X-ray flare, but also in the long term. We focus on one-zone leptohadronic models, but we also explore alternative scenarios: (i) a blazar-core model, which considers neutrino production in the inner jet, close to the supermassive black hole; (ii) a hidden external-photon model, which considers neutrino production in the jet through interactions with photons from a weak broad line region; (iii) a proton-synchrotron model, where high-energy protons in the jet produce γ-rays via synchrotron; and (iv) an intergalactic cascade scenario, where neutrinos are produced in the intergalactic medium by interactions of a high-energy cosmic-ray beam escaping the jet. The Poisson probability to detect a single muon neutrino in 10 years from 3HSP J095507.9+355101 with the real-time IceCube alert analysis is ∼1% (3%) for the most optimistic one-zone leptohadronic model (the multi-zone blazar-core model). Meanwhile, detection of a single neutrino during the 44-day-long high X-ray flux-state period following the neutrino detection is 0.06%, according to our most optimistic leptohadronic model. The most promising scenarios for neutrino production also predict strong intrasource γ-ray attenuation above ∼100 GeV. If the association is real, then IceCube-Gen2 and other future detectors should be able to provide additional evidence for neutrino production in 3HSP J095507.9+355101 and other extreme blazars.
A high-energy muon neutrino event, IceCube-170922A, was recently discovered in both spatial and temporal coincidence with a gamma-ray flare of the blazar TXS 0506+056. It has been shown with standard ...one-zone models that neutrinos can be produced in the blazar jet via hadronic interactions, but with a flux that is mostly limited by the X-ray data. In this work, we explore the neutrino production from TXS 0506+056 by invoking two physically distinct emission zones in the jet, with an inner blob inside of or close to the broad-line region (BLR) and an outer one well beyond the BLR. Using the Doppler-boosted radiation of the BLR as the target photon field, the inner zone accounts for the neutrino and gamma-ray emission via pγ interactions and inverse Compton scattering, respectively, while the outer zone produces the optical and X-ray emission via synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton processes. The different conditions of the two zones allow us to suppress the X-ray emission from the electromagnetic cascade, and set a much higher upper limit on the muon neutrino flux (i.e., ∼10−11 erg cm−2 s−1) than in one-zone models. We compare our scenario in detail with one-zone models discussed in the literature, and argue that differentiating between such scenarios will become possible with next-generation neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube-Gen2.
The recent detection of gravitational waves and electromagnetic counterparts from the double neutron star merger event GW+EM170817 supports the standard paradigm of short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) and ...kilonovae/macronovae. It is important to reveal the nature of the compact remnant left after the merger, either a black hole or neutron star, and their physical link to the origin of the long-lasting emission observed in SGRBs. The diversity of the merger remnants may also lead to different kinds of transients that can be detected in future. Here we study the high-energy emission from the long-lasting central engine left after the coalescence, under certain assumptions. In particular, we consider the X-ray emission from a remnant disk and the nonthermal nebular emission from disk-driven outflows or pulsar winds. We demonstrate that late-time X-ray and high-frequency radio emission can provide useful constraints on properties of the hidden compact remnants and their connections to long-lasting SGRB emission, and we discuss the detectability of nearby merger events through late-time observations at ∼30-100 days after the coalescence. We also investigate the GeV-TeV gamma-ray emission that occurs in the presence of long-lasting central engines and show the importance of external inverse Compton radiation due to upscattering of X-ray photons by relativistic electrons in the jet. We also search for high-energy gamma rays from GW170817 in the Fermi-LAT data and report upper limits on such long-lasting emission. Finally, we consider the implications of GW+EM170817 and discuss the constraints placed by X-ray and high-frequency radio observations.
Abstract
Multiwavelength observations indicate that some starburst galaxies show a dominant nonthermal contribution from their central region. These active galactic nuclei (AGN)-starburst composites ...are of special interest, as both phenomena on their own are potential sources of highly energetic cosmic rays and associated
γ
-ray and neutrino emission. In this work, a homogeneous, steady-state two-zone multimessenger model of the nonthermal emission from the AGN corona as well as the circumnuclear starburst region is developed and subsequently applied to the case of NGC 1068, which has recently shown some first indications of high-energy neutrino emission. Here, we show that the entire spectrum of multimessenger data—from radio to
γ
-rays including the neutrino constraint—can be described very well if both, starburst and AGN corona, are taken into account. Using only a single emission region is not sufficient.
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