paper

Cosmic Rays VI - Starburst galaxies at multiwavelengths

arXiv:0901.1775

Abstract

We propose an explanation for the far-infrared/radio correlation of galaxies in terms of the energy balance of the interstellar medium and determine the flux from high-energy photons and neutrinos from starburst galaxies. We present a catalog of the 127 brightest starburst galaxies with redshifts of z<0.03. In order to investigate the correlation between radio- and far-infrared emission, we apply the leaky box approximation. Further, we derive photon- and neutrino spectra from proton-proton interactions in supernova remnants (SNRs). Here, we assume that a fraction of the SNR's energy is transferred to the acceleration of cosmic rays. We also investigate the possibility of detecting Gamma Ray Bursts from nearby starburst galaxies, using the catalog defined here. We show that the radio emission is only weakly dependent on the magnetic field. It turns out that the intensity of the radio signal is directly proportional to the number of supernova explosions, which scales with the far-infrared luminosity. In addition, we find that high-energy photons from proton-proton interactions in SNRs in starbursts can make up several percent of the diffuse gamma-ray background. The neutrino flux from the same sources has a maximum energy of ~1e5 GeV. Neutrinos can, on the other hand, can be observed if a Gamma Ray Burst happens in a nearby starburst. About 0.03 GRBs per year are expected to occur in the entire catalog. The true number is expected to be even higher, since we only include the brightest sources. The number of events per burst in IceCube varies between about one event and more than 1000 events. This provides good prospects for IceCube to detect a significant event, since the background for a GRB search is close to zero.

27 pages, 13 figures

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