Search for high-energy neutrinos from ultraluminous infrared galaxies with icecube
Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities LIR ≥ 1012L⊙, 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...
Published in: | The Astrophysical Journal |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
American Astronomical Society
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3cb6 https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c37a58e9-4577-4bc0-8ea0-c7c23148a8f4 |
Summary: | Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities LIR ≥ 1012L⊙, 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 ${{\rm{\Phi }}}_{{\nu }_{\mu }+{\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }}^{90 \% }=3.24\times {10}^{-14}\,{\mathrm{TeV}}^{-1}\,{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}\,{(E/10\,\mathrm{TeV})}^{-2.5}$ 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. |
---|