Search for a cumulative neutrino signal from blazar flares using IceCube data

Blazars are active galactic nuclei which have their relativistic particle jet pointing towards Earth and have been observed to emit gamma rays to very high energies. They are also candidates for the yet-unknown accelerators of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. In such a scenario, their gamma-ray emissi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Raab, Christoph, Meagher, Kevin
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/270522
Description
Summary:Blazars are active galactic nuclei which have their relativistic particle jet pointing towards Earth and have been observed to emit gamma rays to very high energies. They are also candidates for the yet-unknown accelerators of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. In such a scenario, their gamma-ray emission might be associated with neutrinos produced by hadronic interactions in the jet. Correlating the astrophysical neutrinos detected by IceCube, a cubic-kilometre neutrino telescope at the South Pole, with the gamma-ray emission from blazars could therefore reveal the origin of cosmic rays. In our method we focus on periods where blazars show an enhanced gamma-ray flux, as measured by Fermi, thereby reducing the background of the search. At the same time we test for the combined emission of a whole blazar population in a stacked search. A detection of such a neutrino flux could lead to the discovery of a source class responsible for cosmic-ray acceleration. We present sensitivities and discovery potentials for a selection of Fermi monitored sources and one year of IceCube data. SCOPUS: cp.p info:eu-repo/semantics/published