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, JA, Ahlers, M, Ahrens, M, Alispach, C, Jr, AAA, Amin, NM, An, R, Andeen, K, Anderson, T, Anton, G, Arguelles, C, Ashida, Y, Axani, S, Bai, X, Balagopal, AV, Barbano, A, Barwick, SW, Bastian, B, Basu, V, Baur, S, Bay, R, Beatty, JJ, Becker, K-H, Tjus, JB, Bellenghi, C, BenZvi, S, Berley, D, Bernardini, E, Besson, DZ, Binder, G, Bindig, D, Blaufuss, E, Blot, S, Boddenberg, M, Bontempo, F, Borowka, J, Boser, S, Botner, O, Boettcher, J, Bourbeau, E, Bradascio, F, Braun, J, Bron, S, Brostean-Kaiser, J, Browne, S, Burgman, A, Burley, RT
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Astronomical Society 2022
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3cb6; https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c37a58e9-4577-4bc0-8ea0-c7c23148a8f4

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.