Evidence for Neutrino Emission from X-Ray-bright Active Galactic Nuclei with IceCube

Abstract

Recently, IceCube reported neutrino emission from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068. Using 13.1 years of IceCube data, we present a follow-up search for neutrino sources in the northern sky. NGC 1068 remains the most significant neutrino source among 110 preselected gamma-ray emitters while also being spatially compatible with the most significant location in the northern sky. Its energy spectrum is characterized by an unbroken power-law with spectral index $\gamma =3.4\pm 0.2$. Consistent with previous results, the observed neutrino flux exceeds its gamma-ray counterpart by at least two orders of magnitude. Motivated by this disparity and the high X-ray luminosity of the source, we selected 47 X-ray bright Seyfert galaxies from the Swift/BAT spectroscopic survey that were not included in the list of gamma-ray emitters. When testing this collection for neutrino emission, we observe a 3.3$\sigma$ excess from an ensemble of 11 sources, with NGC 1068 excluded from the sample. Our results strengthen the evidence that X-ray bright cores of active galactic nuclei are neutrino emitters.

25 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Multimessenger Characterization of High-Energy Neutrino Emission from the Brightest Neutrino-Active Galactic Nuclei
• Revisiting Disk Winds in Active Galactic Nuclei as an Origin of Cosmic Gamma-ray and Neutrino Backgrounds
• Neutrino-Induced Polarization Rotation in Active Galactic Nuclei Plasmas