Obscured $pp$-channel neutrino sources

Abstract

We explore the possibility that the astrophysical neutrinos are produced in $pp$-interactions with a gas cloud near the source acting as a beam dump, which is sufficiently dense to significantly attenuate the associated gamma-ray flux through pair-production on this gas. In this way, such sources could potentially supply the astrophysical neutrino flux whilst avoiding the existing constraints on the non-blazar contribution to the extragalactic gamma-ray background. After defining our model, we implement a Monte Carlo simulation and apply this to different scenarios. First, we investigate a set of active galaxies which exhibit signs of obscuration. We find that, currently, the expected neutrino flux from these objects in our model is below the existing exclusion limits, but can already constrain the amount of protons accelerated in such sources. Second, we investigate the diffuse neutrino flux generated by a population of obscured sources. We find that such a population can indeed alleviate the tension with the extragalactic background light. We discuss the possibility that ultra-luminous infrared galaxies represent such a source class.

30 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Physical Review D. Previously shown in a PhD thesis (arXiv:1911.12244)

References in corpus (10)

• An Introduction to PYTHIA 8.2
• The spectrum of isotropic diffuse gamma-ray emission between 100 MeV and 820 GeV
• High-energy neutrinos from radio galaxies
• Production of gamma rays and neutrinos in the dark jets of the microquasar SS433
• Piercing Through Highly Obscured and Compton-thick AGNs in the Chandra Deep Fields: I. X-ray Spectral and Long-term Variability Analyses
• Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6
• Orphan γ-ray flares from relativistic blobs encountering luminous stars
• Gamma-ray absorption in the microquasar SS433
• On the possibilities of high-energy neutrino production in the jets of microquasar SS433 in light of new observational data
• Cosmic Gamma-ray Background Radiation

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Characterising the signatures of star-forming galaxies in the extra-galactic $\gamma$-ray background
• IceCube Search for High-Energy Neutrinos from Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies