Massive Neutrino Detector Finds No Link Between Black Holes and Cosmic Rays
Researchers combing through a decade of data from the IceCube neutrino observatory found no correlation between high-energy particles from space and radio signals from distant black holes—challenging leading theories about where cosmic neutrinos originate. The null result narrows the hunt for these sources and could reshape how scientists plan next-generation particle detectors worth billions in funding.
Originaltitel: Probing the Connection between IceCube Neutrinos and MOJAVE AGN
<p>Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are prime candidate sources of the high-energy, astrophysical neutrinos detected by IceCube. This is demonstrated by the real-time multimessenger detection of the blazar TXS 0506+056 and the recent evidence of neutrino emission from NGC 1068 from a separate time-averaged study. However, the production mechanism of the astrophysical neutrinos in AGN is not well established, which can be resolved via correlation studies with photon observations. For neutrinos produced due to photohadronic interactions in AGN, in addition to a correlation of neutrinos with high-energy photons, there would also be a correlation of neutrinos with photons emitted at radio wavelengths. In this work, we perform an in-depth stacking study of the correlation between 15 GHz radio observations of AGN reported in the MOJAVE XV catalog, and 10 yr of neutrino data from IceCube. We also use a time-dependent approach, which improves the statistical power of the stacking analysis. No significant correlation was found for both analyses, and upper limits are reported. When compared to the IceCube diffuse flux, at 100 TeV and for a spectral index of 2.5, the upper limits derived are ∼3% and ∼9% for the time-averaged and time-dependent cases, respectively.</p>