Hint for a TeV neutrino emission from the Galactic Ridge with ANTARES

Abstract

Interactions of cosmic ray protons, atomic nuclei, and electrons in the interstellar medium in the inner part of the Milky Way produce a $\gamma$-ray flux from the Galactic Ridge. If the $\gamma$-ray emission is dominated by proton and nuclei interactions, a neutrino flux comparable to the $\gamma$-ray flux is expected from the same sky region. Data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope are used to constrain the neutrino flux from the Galactic Ridge in the 1-100 TeV energy range. Neutrino events reconstructed both as tracks and showers are considered in the analysis and the selection is optimized for the search of an excess in the region $|l|<30°$, $|b|<2°$. The expected background in the search region is estimated using an off-zone region with similar sky coverage. Neutrino signal originating from a power-law spectrum with spectral index ranging from ${\Gamma }_{\nu }=1$ to $4$ is simulated in both channels. The observed energy distributions are fitted to constrain the neutrino emission from the Ridge. The energy distributions in the signal region are inconsistent with the background expectation at $\sim 96\%$ confidence level. The mild excess over the background is consistent with a neutrino flux with a power law with a spectral index $2.45_{-0.34}^{+0.22}$ and a flux normalization $d{N}_{\nu }/d{E}_{\nu }=4.0_{-2.0}^{+2.7}\times 10^{-16}{\text{GeV}}^{-1}{\text{cm}}^{-2}{\text{s}}^{-1}{\text{sr}}^{-1}$ at 40 TeV reference energy. Such flux is consistent with the expected neutrino signal if the bulk of the observed $\gamma$-ray flux from the Galactic Ridge originates from interactions of cosmic ray protons and nuclei with a power-law spectrum extending well into the PeV energy range.

arXiv comment8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (35)

• The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission
• Cosmic-ray propagation and interactions in the Galaxy
• Letter of Intent for KM3NeT 2.0
• Fermi-LAT Observations of the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission: Implications for Cosmic Rays and the Interstellar Medium
• A New Model of the Galactic Magnetic Field
• The Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays
• IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
• Development of the Model of Galactic Interstellar Emission for Standard Point-Source Analysis of Fermi Large Area Telescope Data
• Deriving global structure of the Galactic Magnetic Field from Faraday Rotation Measures of extragalactic sources
• Kneelike structure in the spectrum of the heavy component of cosmic rays observed with KASCADE-Grande
• The gamma-ray and neutrino sky: A consistent picture of Fermi-LAT, Milagro, and IceCube results
• Measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum with IceTop-73
• Constraints on Galactic Neutrino Emission with Seven Years of IceCube Data
• Radial distribution of the diffuse gamma-ray emissivity in the galactic disk
• Cosmic-ray energy spectrum and composition up to the ankle - the case for a second Galactic component
• Diffuse Galactic gamma ray flux at very high energy
• Diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission with H.E.S.S
• Joint constraints on Galactic diffuse neutrino emission from ANTARES and IceCube
• Diffuse cosmic rays shining in the Galactic center: A novel interpretation of H.E.S.S. and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data
• PeV neutrinos from interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar medium in the Galaxy
• Energy spectra of secondaries in proton-proton interactions
• Escape model for Galactic cosmic rays and an early extragalactic transition
• New Constraints on all flavour Galactic diffuse neutrino emission with the ANTARES telescope
• AAfrag: Interpolation routines for Monte Carlo results on secondary production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions
• Neutrino yield from Galactic cosmic rays
• Constraints on the neutrino emission from the Galactic Ridge with the ANTARES telescope
• The Southern Wide-Field Gamma-Ray Observatory (SWGO): A Next-Generation Ground-Based Survey Instrument for VHE Gamma-Ray Astronomy
• Monte Carlo simulations for the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope
• Expectations for high energy diffuse galactic neutrinos for different cosmic ray distributions
• Neutrinos from Extra-Large Hadron Collider in the Milky Way
• High Energy Neutrinos from the Fermi Bubbles
• Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission at TeV energy
• Measurement of the atmospheric ${\nu }_e$ and ${\nu }_{\mu }$ energy spectra with the ANTARES neutrino telescope
• Cosmic Rays in the Inner Galaxy and the Diffusion Properties of the Interstellar Medium
• Hard spectrum of cosmic rays in the Disks of Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud

Cited by in corpus (22)

• High-energy neutrino-induced cascade from the direction of the flaring radio blazar TXS 0506+056 observed by Baikal-GVD in 2021
• Search for directional associations between Baikal Gigaton Volume Detector neutrino-induced cascades and high-energy astrophysical sources
• Searches for neutrinos in the direction of radio-bright blazars with the ANTARES telescope
• Prospects for a survey of the Galactic plane with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Galactic Diffuse Neutrino Emission from Sources beyond the Discovery Horizon
• A proposed deep sea Neutrino Observatory in the Nanhai
• The origin of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos: new results and prospects
• Unveiling the nature of galactic TeV sources with IceCube results
• Probing the Galactic neutrino flux at neutrino energies above 200 TeV with the Baikal Gigaton Volume Detector
• Setting an upper limit for the total TeV neutrino flux from the disk of our Galaxy
• Hard X-ray emission from blazars associated with high-energy neutrinos
• Estimatingthe Contribution of Galactic Neutrino Sources
• Extreme Jet Beaming Observed in Neutrino-Associated Blazars
• Search for neutrino signals correlated with LHAASO diffuse Galactic emission
• Leptonic and hadronic models of high-energy nebula around V4641 Sgr
• On the contribution of cosmic-ray interactions in the circumgalactic gas to the observed high-energy neutrino flux
• An isotropic full-sky sample of optically selected blazars
• Search for Diffuse Galactic Neutrinos with the Full ANTARES Telescope Dataset
• Particle Astrophysics with High and Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos
• Neutrino Astronomy at High Energies - An Experimental Review
• The potential of diffuse Galactic Ridge neutrino measurements to constrain dark matter
• TeV-PeV Gamma-ray and Neutrino Emission in the Galactic Plane