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Abstract The recent IceCube detection of TeV neutrino emission from the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068 suggests that active galactic nuclei (AGNs) could make a sizable contribution to the diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos. The absence of TeVγ-rays from NGC 1068 indicates neutrino production in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole, where the high radiation density leads toγ-ray attenuation. Therefore, any potential neutrino emission from similar sources is not expected to correlate with high-energyγ-rays. Disk-corona models predict neutrino emission from Seyfert galaxies to correlate with keV X-rays because they are tracers of coronal activity. Using through-going track events from the Northern Sky recorded by IceCube between 2011 and 2021, we report results from a search for individual and aggregated neutrino signals from 27 additional Seyfert galaxies that are contained in the Swift's Burst Alert Telescope AGN Spectroscopic Survey. Besides the generic single power law, we evaluate the spectra predicted by the disk-corona model assuming stochastic acceleration parameters that match the measured flux from NGC 1068. Assuming all sources to be intrinsically similar to NGC 1068, our findings constrain the collective neutrino emission from X-ray bright Seyfert galaxies in the northern sky, but, at the same time, show excesses of neutrinos that could be associated with the objects NGC 4151 and CGCG 420-015. These excesses result in a 2.7σsignificance with respect to background expectations.
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High-energy Neutrinos from the Inner Circumnuclear Region of NGC 1068
Abstract High-energy neutrinos are detected by the IceCube Observatory in the direction of NGC 1068, the archetypical type II Seyfert galaxy. The neutrino flux, surprisingly, is more than an order of magnitude higher than theγ-ray upper limits at measured TeV energy, posing tight constraints on the physical conditions of a neutrino production site. We report an analysis of the submillimeter, mid-infrared, and ultraviolet observations of the central 50 pc of NGC 1068 and suggest that the inner dusty torus and the region where the jet interacts with the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM) may be a potential neutrino production site. Based on radiation and magnetic field properties derived from observations, we calculate the electromagnetic cascade of theγ-rays accompanying the neutrinos. When injecting protons with a hard spectrum, our model may explain the observed neutrino flux above ∼10 TeV. It predicts a unique sub-TeVγ-ray component, which could be identified by a future observation. Jet–ISM interactions are commonly observed in the proximity of jets of both supermassive and stellar-mass black holes. Our results imply that such interaction regions could beγ-ray-obscured neutrino production sites, which are needed to explain the IceCube diffuse neutrino flux.
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- PAR ID:
- 10486096
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 956
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 8
- Size(s):
- Article No. 8
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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