On The Origin of IceCube's PeV Neutrinos

Abstract

The IceCube collaboration has recently reported the observation of two events with energies in excess of 1 PeV. While an atmospheric origin of these events cannot be ruled out at this time, this pair of showers may potentially represent the first observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. In this paper, we argue that if these events are neutrino-induced, then the neutrinos are very likely to have been produced via photo-meson interactions taking place in the same class of astrophysical objects that are responsible for the acceleration of the $\sim$$10^{17}$ eV cosmic ray spectrum. Among the proposed sources of such cosmic rays, gamma-ray bursts stand out as particularly capable of generating PeV neutrinos at the level implied by IceCube's two events. In contrast, the radiation fields in typical active galactic nuclei models are likely dominated by lower energy (UV) photons, and thus feature higher energy thresholds for pion production, leading to neutrino spectra which peak at EeV rather than PeV energies (models with significant densities of x-ray emission, however, could evade this problem). Cosmogenic neutrinos generated from the propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic rays similarly peak at energies that are much higher than those of the events reported by IceCube.

9 pages, 3 figures, changes in v2: in agreement with JCAP published version, small revisions in text, additions of references, corrections of typos, results and conclusions unchanged

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Cited by in corpus (62)

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• Atmospheric and Astrophysical Neutrinos above 1 TeV Interacting in IceCube
• TeV-PeV Neutrinos from Low-Power Gamma-Ray Burst Jets inside Stars
• Probing the Galactic Origin of the IceCube Excess with Gamma-Rays
• Cosmic Neutrino Pevatrons: A Brand New Pathway to Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Particle Physics
• Spectral analysis of the high-energy IceCube neutrinos
• Testing Relativity with High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
• Tidal disruption jets of supermassive black holes as hidden sources of cosmic rays: explaining the IceCube TeV-PeV neutrinos
• Demystifying the PeV Cascades in IceCube: Less (Energy) is More (Events)
• Photohadronic Origin of the TeV-PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube
• Indications of Negative Evolution for the Sources of the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays
• Diffuse PeV neutrinos from EeV cosmic ray sources: semi-relativistic hypernova remnants in star-forming galaxies
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• High-energy neutrinos from radio galaxies
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• Searching for MeV-Scale Gauge Bosons with IceCube
• Pinning down the cosmic ray source mechanism with new IceCube data
• First combined search for neutrino point-sources in the Southern Hemisphere with the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes
• Standard Model Explanation of the Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Events at IceCube
• CνB absorption line in the neutrino spectrum at IceCube
• Analysis of the 4-year IceCube high-energy starting events
• Propagation of Superluminal PeV IceCube Neutrinos: A High Energy Spectral Cutoff or New Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation
• Neutrinos from Choked Jets Accompanied by Type-II Supernovae
• Possible Interpretations of IceCube High-Energy Neutrino Events
• Geometric Compatibility of IceCube TeV-PeV Neutrino Excess and its Galactic Dark Matter Origin
• Constraining Superluminal Electron and Neutrino Velocities using the 2010 Crab Nebula Flare and the IceCube PeV Neutrino Events
• Neutrino yield from Galactic cosmic rays
• Implications of a PeV neutrino spectral cutoff in GRB models
• A consistent model for leptogenesis, dark matter and the IceCube signal
• Cosmic PeV Neutrinos and the Sources of Ultrahigh Energy Protons
• A Consistent Theory of Decaying Dark Matter Connecting IceCube to the Sesame Street
• On the Origin of High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos
• Probing decaying heavy dark matter with the 4-year IceCube HESE data
• Star-forming galaxies as the origin of the IceCube PeV neutrinos
• Neutrinos and Cosmic Rays Observed by IceCube
• Is the Ultra-High Energy Cosmic-Ray Excess Observed by the Telescope Array Correlated with IceCube Neutrinos?
• Boosted Dark Matter and its implications for the features in IceCube HESE data
• Tsallis cosmology and its applications in dark matter physics with focus on IceCube high-energy neutrino data
• Possible High-Energy Neutrino and Photon Signals from Gravitational Wave Bursts due to Double Neutron Star Mergers
• Estimating the contribution of Galactic sources to the diffuse neutrino flux
• Prediction of the diffuse neutrino flux from cosmic ray interactions near Supernova Remnants
• The role of hadronic cascades in GRB models of efficient neutrino production
• PeV IceCube signals and Dark Matter relic abundance in modified cosmologies
• Correlation of $\gamma$-ray and high-energy cosmic ray fluxes from the giant lobes of Centaurus A
• The fraction of muon tracks in cosmic neutrinos
• How Unequal Fluxes of High Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos and Antineutrinos can Fake New Physics
• Origin Of The High Energy Cosmic Neutrino Background
• Searching for tau neutrinos with Cherenkov telescopes
• Cutoff of IceCube Neutrino Spectrum due to t-channel Resonant Absorption by C$\nu$B
• Can FSRQs produce the IceCube detected diffuse neutrino emission?
• Search for GeV and X-ray flares associated with the IceCube track-like neutrinos
• The spectrum and flavor composition of the astrophysical neutrinos in IceCube
• Explanation of IceCube spectrum with $\nu \to 3\nu$ neutrino splitting in a $\nu$2HDM model
• Kaniadakis entropy-based characterization of IceCube PeV neutrino signals
• Phenomenology of Colored Radiative Neutrino Mass Model and Its Implications on the Cosmic-ray Observations
• Newly born extragalactic millisecond pulsars as efficient emitters of PeV neutrinos
• Efficiency of Centrifugal Mechanism in Producing PeV Neutrinos From Active Galactic Nuclei
• Diffuse flux of PeV neutrinos from centrifugally accelerated protons in active galactic nuclei
• Study of PeV neutrinos around dwarf galaxies near giant lobes of Centaurus A
• Type-III Scotogenic Model: Inflation, Dark Matter and Collider Phenomenology