Revealing the Production Mechanism of High-Energy Neutrinos from NGC 1068

Abstract

The detection of high-energy neutrino signals from the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068 provides us with an opportunity to study nonthermal processes near the center of supermassive black holes. Using the IceCube and latest Fermi-LAT data, we present general multimessenger constraints on the energetics of cosmic rays and the size of neutrino emission regions. In the photohadronic scenario, the required cosmic-ray luminosity should be larger than about 1-10 percent of the Eddington luminosity, and the emission radius should be less than about 15 Schwarzschild radii in low-beta plasma and less than about 3 Schwarzschild radii in high-beta plasma. The leptonic scenario overshoots the NuSTAR or Fermi-LAT data for any emission radii we consider, and the required gamma-ray luminosity is much larger than the Eddington luminosity. The beta decay scenario also violates not only the energetics requirement but also gamma-ray constraints especially when the Bethe-Heitler and photomeson production processes are consistently considered. Our results rule out the leptonic and beta decay scenarios in a nearly model-independent manner, and support hadronic mechanisms in magnetically-powered coronae if NGC 1068 is a source of high-energy neutrinos.

15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, minor changes

References in corpus (28)

• Evidence for neutrino emission from the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068
• On the X-ray, optical emission line and black hole mass properties of local Seyfert galaxies
• Constraining High-Energy Cosmic Neutrino Sources: Implications and Prospects
• Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
• ALMA images the many faces of the NGC1068 torus and its surroundings
• Thermal imaging of dust hiding the black hole in the Active Galaxy NGC 1068
• Hidden Hearts of Neutrino Active Galaxies
• Inferring the flavor of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos at their sources
• Angular Momentum Transport and Particle Acceleration during Magnetorotational Instability in a Kinetic Accretion Disk
• New constraints on the origin of medium-energy neutrinos observed by IceCube
• The TeV Diffuse Cosmic Neutrino Spectrum and the Nature of Astrophysical Neutrino Sources
• FORGE'd in FIRE II: The Formation of Magnetically-Dominated Quasar Accretion Disks from Cosmological Initial Conditions
• TeV neutrinos and hard X-rays from relativistic reconnection in the corona of NGC 1068
• High-Energy Neutrinos from Active Galactic Nuclei
• Disentangling the Hadronic Components in NGC 1068
• Soft gamma rays from low accreting supermassive black holes and connection to energetic neutrinos
• Radiative Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Turbulent Comptonization in Magnetized Black-Hole Coronae
• Sub-GeV Gamma Rays from Nearby Seyfert Galaxies and Implications for Coronal Neutrino Emission
• Powerlaw spectra from stochastic acceleration
• The Interplay between accelerated Protons, X-rays and Neutrinos in the Corona of NGC 1068: Constraints from Kinetic Plasma Simulations
• Nonlinear aspects of stochastic particle acceleration
• Jet Power of Jetted Active Galactic Nuclei: Implication for Evolution and Unification
• The neutrino background from non-jetted active galactic nuclei
• An Analytic Model For Magnetically-Dominated Accretion Disks
• Nuclear and electromagnetic cascades induced by ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays in radio galaxies: implications for Centaurus A
• Local models of two-temperature accretion disc coronae. I. Structure, outflows, and energetics
• ALMA detection of parsec-scale blobs at the head of kiloparsec-scale jet in the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068
• On the possible jet contribution to the $\gamma$-ray luminosity in NGC 1068

Cited by in corpus (15)

• A magnetized strongly turbulent corona as the source of neutrinos from NGC 1068
• Neutrinos from stochastic acceleration in black hole environments
• Constraining the contribution of Seyfert galaxies to the diffuse neutrino flux in light of point source observations
• Cosmic-Ray Cooling in Active Galactic Nuclei as a New Probe of Inelastic Dark Matter
• On the possible contributions of two nearby blazars to the NGC 4151 neutrino hotspot
• Proton Acceleration by Collisionless Shocks in Supermassive Black Hole Coronae: Implications for High-Energy Neutrinos
• Plausible Indication of Gamma-Ray Absorption by Dark Matter in NGC 1068
• Neutrinos from extreme astrophysical sources
• Multimessenger Characterization of High-Energy Neutrino Emission from the Brightest Neutrino-Active Galactic Nuclei
• High-Energy Neutrinos from Cosmic-Ray Scatterings with Supernova Neutrinos
• Revisiting Disk Winds in Active Galactic Nuclei as an Origin of Cosmic Gamma-ray and Neutrino Backgrounds
• Interpreting Swift and NuSTAR Observations of the Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus NGC 4278 with Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows and Implications for Neutrino Emission
• Physical origin of very-high-energy gamma rays from the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus NGC 4278 and implications for neutrino observations
• UHECRs Propagation and their Multimessengers: Upper limits and the Impact of the Extragalactic Magnetic Field
• Neutrino production in the central dark-matter spikes of active galaxies