Search for High-energy Neutrinos from Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with IceCube

• Published in: The Astrophysical Journal
• Main Authors: Abbasi, R., Ackermann, M., Adams, J., Aguilar, J. A., Ahlers, M., Ahrens, M., Alispach, C., Alves, A. A., Amin, N. M., An, R., Andeen, K., Anderson, T., Anton, G., Argüelles, C., Ashida, Y., Axani, S., Bai, X., V., A. Balagopal, Barbano, A., Barwick, S. W., Bastian, B., Basu, V., Baur, S., Bay, R., Beatty, J. J.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Loyola eCommons 2022
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://ecommons.luc.edu/physics_facpubs/89; https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3cb6; https://ecommons.luc.edu/context/physics_facpubs/article/1091/viewcontent/Search_20for_20High_energy_20Neutrinos_20from_20Ultraluminous_20Infrared_20Galaxies_20with_20IceCube.pdf

Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities L IR ≥ 1012 L ⊙, making them the most luminous objects in the infrared sky. These dusty objects are generally powered by starbursts with star formation rates that exceed 100 M ⊙ yr-1, possibly combined with a contribution from an active galactic nucleus. Such environments make ULIRGs plausible sources of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos, which can be observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. We present a stacking search for high-energy neutrinos from a representative sample of 75 ULIRGs with redshift z ≤ 0.13 using 7.5 yr of IceCube data. The results are consistent with a background-only observation, yielding upper limits on the neutrino flux from these 75 ULIRGs. For an unbroken E -2.5 power-law spectrum, we report an upper limit on the stacked flux φνμ+ν¯μ90%=3.24×10-14TeV-1cm-2s-1(E/10TeV)-2.5 at 90% confidence level. In addition, we constrain the contribution of the ULIRG source population to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux as well as model predictions.