Photohadronic origin of -ray BL Lac emission: implications for IceCube neutrinos
arXiv:1501.07115 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv179
Abstract
The recent IceCube discovery of 0.1-1 PeV neutrinos of astrophysical origin opens up a new era for high-energy astrophysics. Although there are various astrophysical candidate sources, a firm association of the detected neutrinos with one (or more) of them is still lacking. A recent analysis of plausible astrophysical counterparts within the error circles of IceCube events showed that likely counterparts for nine of the IceCube neutrinos include mostly BL Lacs, among which Mrk 421. Motivated by this result and a previous independent analysis on the neutrino emission from Mrk 421, we test the BL Lac-neutrino connection in the context of a specific theoretical model for BL Lac emission. We model the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the BL Lacs selected as counterparts of the IceCube neutrinos using a one-zone leptohadronic model and mostly nearly simultaneous data. The neutrino flux for each BL Lac is self-consistently calculated, using photon and proton distributions specifically derived for every individual source. We find that the SEDs of the sample, although different in shape and flux, are all well fitted by the model using reasonable parameter values. Moreover, the model-predicted neutrino flux and energy for these sources are of the same order of magnitude as those of the IceCube neutrinos. In two cases, namely Mrk 421 and H 1914-194, we find a suggestively good agreement between the model prediction and the detected neutrino flux. Our predictions for all the BL Lacs of the sample are in the range to be confirmed or disputed by IceCube in the next few years of data sampling.
18 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, MNRAS accepted
References in corpus (15)
- The power of blazar jets
- Multiwavelength Observations of Markarian 421 in March 2001: an Unprecedented View on the X-ray/TeV Correlated Variability
- Spine-sheath layer radiative interplay in subparsec-scale jets and the TeV emission from M87
- Are both BL Lacs and pulsar wind nebulae the astrophysical counterparts of IceCube neutrino events?
- Discovery of Very High Energy gamma-rays from 1ES 1011+496 at z=0.212
- Bethe-Heitler emission in BL Lacs: filling the gap between X-rays and -rays
- Detection of VHE radiation from the BL Lac PG 1553+113 with the MAGIC telescope
- Structured jets in BL Lac objects: efficient PeV neutrino factories?
- Evidence for VHE Gamma-ray Emission from the Distant BL Lac PG 1553+113
- Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from the BL Lac Object H2356-309 with the H.E.S.S. Cherenkov Telescopes
- UHECR escape mechanisms for protons and neutrons from GRBs, and the cosmic ray-neutrino connection
- Implications of a PeV neutrino spectral cutoff in GRB models
- A simplified view of blazars: the very high energy gamma-ray vision
- Time-dependent modelling of PKS 2155-304 in a low state
- A two-zone approach to neutrino production in gamma-ray bursts