Searches for very high energy gamma rays from blazars with CANGAROO-III telescope in 2005-2009
Y. Mizumura, J. Kushida, K. Nishijima, G. V. Bicknell, R. W. Clay, P. G. Edwards, S. Gunji, S. Hara, S. Hayashi, S. Kabuki, F. Kajino, A. Kawachi, T. Kifune, R.… 展开作者
Y. Mizumura, J. Kushida, K. Nishijima, G. V. Bicknell, R. W. Clay, P. G. Edwards, S. Gunji, S. Hara, S. Hayashi, S. Kabuki, F. Kajino, A. Kawachi, T. Kifune, R. Kiuchi, K. Kodani, Y. Matsubara, T. Mizukami, Y. Mizumoto, M. Mori, H. Muraishi, T. Naito, M. Ohishi, V. Stamatescu, D. L. Swaby, T. Tanimori, G. Thornton, F. Tokanai, T. Toyama, S. Yanagita, T. Yoshida, T. Yoshikoshi
备注：
11 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics
We have searched for very high energy (VHE) gamma rays from four blazars using the CANGAROO-III imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope. We report the results of the observations of H 2356-309, PKS 2155-304, PKS 0537-441, and 3C 279, performed from 2005 to 2009, applying a new analysis to suppress the effects of the position dependence of Cherenkov images in the field of view. No significant VHE gamma ray emission was detected from any of the four blazars. The GeV gamma-ray spectra of these objects were obtained by analyzing Fermi/LAT archival data. Non-simultaneous wide range (radio to VHE gamma-ray bands) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) including CANGAROO-III upper limits, GeV gamma-ray spectra, and archival data are discussed using a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model in combination with a external Compton (EC) radiation. The HBLs (H 2356-309 and PKS 2155-304) can be explained by a simple SSC model, and PKS 0537-441 and 3C 279 are well modeled by a combination of SSC and EC model. We find a consistency with the blazar sequence in terms of strength of magnetic field and component size.
Observations with the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS have shown that the Universe is more transparent than expected to gamma rays above 100GeV. As a natural explanation, the DARMA scenario has previously been proposed, wherein photons can oscillate into a new very light axionlike particle and vice-versa in the presence of cosmic magnetic fields. Here we demonstrate that the most recent observations further support the DARMA scenario, thereby making the existence of a very light axion-like particle more likely.
Axionlike particles (ALPs) could mix with photons in the presence of astrophysical magnetic fields. Searching for this effect in gamma-ray observations of blazars has provided some of the strongest constraints on ALP parameter space so far. Previously, photon-photon dispersion of gamma-rays off of the CMB has been shown to be important for these calculations, and is universally included in ALP-photon mixing models. Here, we assess the effects of dispersion off of other photon fields within the blazar (produced by the accretion disk, the broad line region, the dust torus, starlight, and the syn…
Some Quantum Gravity (QG) theories, aiming at unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics, predict an energy-dependent modified dispersion relation for photons in vacuum leading to a Violation of Lorentz Invariance (LIV). One way to test these theories is to monitor TeV photons time-of-flight emitted by distant, highly energetic and highly variable astrophysical sources such as flaring active galactic nuclei. Only one time-lag detection was reported so far. We have recently shown however that significant intrinsic time-lags should arise from in situ blazar emission processes at TeV energ…
Many theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predict the existence of axionlike particles (ALPs) that mix with photons in the presence of a magnetic field. One prominent indirect method of searching for ALPs is to look for irregularities in blazar gamma-ray spectra caused by ALP-photon mixing in astrophysical magnetic fields. This requires the modelling of magnetic fields between Earth and the blazar. So far, only very simple models for the magnetic field in the blazar jet have been used. Here we investigate the effects of more complicated jet magnetic field configurations on th…
Blazar Constraints on Axions through New Spectral Modulation Searches in 1ES 1959+650 & B2 1811+31
Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INFN, Sezione di Bologna（意大利国家核物理研究所博洛尼部分所）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
Recent detection of blazar 3C279 by MAGIC has confirmed previous indications by H.E.S.S. that the Universe is more transparent to very-high-energy gamma rays than currently thought. This circumstance can be reconciled with observations of nearby blazars provided that photon oscillations into a very light Axion-Like Particle occur in extragalactic magnetic fields. The emerging "DARMA scenario" can be tested in the near future by the satellite-borne Fermi LAT detector as well as by the ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III, VERITAS and by the Extensi…
Located at the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is the world largest neutrino telescope, instrumenting one cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice at a depth between 1450m to 2450m. In 2013 IceCube reported the first observations of a diffuse astrophysical high-energy neutrino flux. Although the IceCube Collaboration has identified more than 100 high-energy neutrino events, the origin of this neutrino flux is still not known. Blazars, a subclass of Active Galactic Nuclei and one of the most powerful classes of objects in the Universe, have long been considered promising sources of high en…
We present a targeted search for blazar flux-correlated high-energy ($\varepsilon_ν> 1$ TeV) neutrinos from six bright northern blazars, using the public database of northern-hemisphere neutrinos detected during "IC40" 40-string operations of the IceCube neutrino observatory (April 2008 to May 2009). Our six targeted blazars are subjects of long-term monitoring campaigns by the VERITAS TeV gamma-ray observatory. We use the publicly-available VERITAS lightcurves to identify periods of excess and flaring emission. These predefined intervals serve as our "active temporal windows" in a search for …
Early indications by H.E.S.S. and the subsequent detection of blazar 3C279 by MAGIC show that the Universe is more transparent to very-high-energy gamma rays than previously thought. We demonstrate that this circumstance can be reconciled with standard blazar emission models provided that photon oscillations into a very light Axion-Like Particle occur in extragalactic magnetic fields. A quantitative estimate of this effect indeed explains the observed spectrum of 3C279. Our prediction can be tested by the satellite-borne Fermi/LAT detector as well as by the ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Che…
The recent detection of blazar 3C279 by MAGIC has confirmed previous indications by H.E.S.S. that the Universe is more transparent to very-high-energy gamma rays than previously thought. We show that this fact can be reconciled with standard blazar emission models provided photon oscillations into a veri light Axion-Like Particle occur in extragalactic magnetic fields. A quantitative estimate of this effect explains the observed spectrum of 3C279. Our prediction can be tested in the near future by the satellite-borne GLAST detector as well as by the ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov T…
We present a large collection of photometric data on the Blazar PKS 0537-441 in the VRIJHK bands taken in 2004-2009. At least three flare-like episodes with months duration, and >3 mag amplitude are apparent. The spectral energy distribution is consistent with a power law, and no indication of a thermal component is found. We searched for short time scale variability, and an interesting event was identified in the J band, with a duration of ~25 minutes.
An anomalously large transparency of the Universe to gamma rays has recently been discovered by the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) H.E.S.S. and MAGIC. We show that observations can be reconciled with standard blazar emission models provided photon oscillations into a very light Axion-Like Particle occur in extragalactic magnetic fields. A quantitative estimate of this effect is successfully applied to the blazar 3C279. Our prediction can be tested with the satellite-borne Fermi/LAT detector as well as with the ground-based IACTs H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROOIII, VERITAS and the E…
Blazar variability appears to be stochastic in nature. However, a possibility of low-dimensional chaos was considered in the past, but with no unambiguous detection so far. If present, it would constrain the emission mechanism by suggesting an underlying dynamical system. We rigorously searched for signatures of chaos in Fermi-Large Area Telescope light curves of 11 blazars. The data were comprehensively investigated using the methods of nonlinear time series analysis: phase-space reconstruction, fractal dimension, maximal Lyapunov exponent (mLE). We tested several possible parameters affectin…
IceCube has detected a cumulative flux of PeV neutrinos, which origin is unknown. Blazars, active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets pointing to us, are long and widely expected to be one of the strong candidates of high energy neutrino sources. The neutrino production depends strongly on the cosmic ray power of blazar jets, which is largely unknown. The recent null results in stacking searches of neutrinos for several blazar samples by IceCube put upper limits on the neutrino fluxes from these blazars. Here we compute the cosmic ray power and PeV neutrino flux of Fermi-LAT blazars, and fi…
Some Quantum Gravity models predict a violation of Lorentz invariance. Namely, the velocity of photons in vacuum could depend on their energies. One possibility for Lorentz Invariance Violation (LIV) searches is to look for energy-dependent delays in the arrival time of very high energy (VHE) photons coming from distant sources such as TeV emitting Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), mainly blazars. Up to now, observations of flaring AGN have only provided upper limits on LIV energy scale since no significant time-delay was found and confirmed. However, AGN are not perfect sources for such LIV searc…
Recent progress in very high energy (VHE, E >100 GeV) $γ$-ray observations, together with advances in the extragalactic background light (EBL) modelling, allows to search for new phenomena such as $γ$-axion-like particle ($γ\rightarrow$ ALP) oscillation and to explore the extragalactic magnetic field (EGMF) strength and structure. These studies are usually performed by searching for some deviation from the so-called absorption-only model, that accounts for only primary photon absorption on the EBL and adiabatic losses. In fact, there exist several indications that the absorption-only model is …
Axion Like Particles (ALPs), postulated to solve the strong-CP problem, are predicted to couple with photons in the presence of magnetic fields, which may lead to a significant change in the observed spectra of gamma-ray sources such as AGNs. Here we simultaneously consider in the same framework both the photon/axion mixing that takes place in the gamma-ray source and that one expected to occur in the intergalactic magnetic fields. We show that photon/axion mixing could explain recent puzzles regarding the observed spectra of distant gamma-ray sources as well as the recently published lower li…
Blazars are among the most powerful steady sources in the Universe. Multi-messenger searches for blazars have traditionally focused on their gamma-ray emission, which can be produced simultaneously with neutrinos in photohadronic interactions. However, X-ray data can be equally vital to constrain the SED of these sources, since the hadronically co-produced gamma-rays could get absorbed by the ambient photon fields and cascade down to X-ray energies before escaping. In this work, we present the outline for an untriggered, time-dependent analysis of neutrino flares from the direction of X-ray se…
Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of ALPs, which are very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. Photon-ALP oscillations occur in the presence of an external magnetic field, and ALPs can lead to observable effects on the measured photon spectrum of astrophysical sources. An intriguing situation arises when blazars are observed with the Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS. The extragalactic background light (EBL) produced by galaxies during cosmic evolution gives rise to a source dimming which becomes important in the VHE band. Th…
High-energy photons emitted by flaring active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been used for many years to constrain modified dispersion relations in vacuum encountered in the context of quantum gravity phenomenology. In such studies, done in the GeV-TeV range, energy-dependent delays (spectral lags) are searched for, usually neglecting any source-intrinsic time delay. With the aim being to distinguish lorentz invariance violation (LIV) effects from lags generated at the sources themselves, a detailed investigation into intrinsic spectral lags in flaring AGNs above 100 GeV is presented in the frame…
We searched for gamma-ray blazar candidates among the 382 unidentified hard X-ray sources of the 3rd Palermo BAT Catalog (3PBC) obtained from the analysis of 66 months of SWIFT-BAT survey data and listing 1586 sources. We adopted a recently developed association method based on the peculiar infrared colors which characterize the gamma-ray blazars included in the second catalog of active galactic nuclei detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (2LAC). We used this method exploiting the data of the all-sky survey performed by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to establish correspo…
Radio-loud sources with blazar-like properties, but having a jet that does not directly point in the direction of the observer are among the most interesting classes of gamma-ray emitters. These sources are known as Misaligned Active Galactic Nuclei (MAGN). Understanding MAGN properties is useful to improve the knowledge of blazar energetics. We searched for new MAGN candidates among the remaining blazars of uncertain type detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) using a methodology based on characterizing their radio morphology. We identified seven new candidates associated with gamma…
Despite the uncovered association of a high-energy neutrino with the apparent flaring state of blazar TXS 0506+056 in 2017, the mechanisms leading to astrophysical particle acceleration and neutrino production are still uncertain. Recent studies found that when transparent to $γ$-rays, $γ$-flaring blazars do not have the opacity for protons to produce neutrinos. Here we present observational evidence for an alternative explanation, in which $γ$-ray emission is suppressed during efficient neutrino production. A large proton and target photon density help produce neutrinos while temporarily supp…
Collecting experimental insight into the relativistic particle populations and emission mechanisms at work within TeV-emitting blazar jets, which are spatially unresolvable in most bands and have strong beaming factors, is a daunting task. New observational information has the potential to lead to major strides in understanding the acceleration site parameters. Detection of molecular carbon monoxide (CO) in TeV emitting blazars, however, implies the existence of intrinsic gas, a connection often found in photo-dissociated region models and numerical simulations. The existence of intrinsic gas …
Association of the IceCube neutrinos with CAZ blazar light curves
University of Turku（图尔库大学）；Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA)（芬兰ESO天文中心）；Aalto University（阿尔托大学）；Aalto University Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering（阿尔托大学电子与纳米工程系的）；Institute of Astrophysics, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas（希腊研究与技术基金会天体物理研究所）；Norwegian University of Science and Technology（挪威科技大学）
We have examined 40 NuSTAR light curves (LCs) of five TeV emitting high synchrotron peaked blazars: 1ES 0229+200, Mrk 421, Mrk 501, 1ES 1959+650 and PKS 2155-304. Four of the blazars showed intraday variability in the NuSTAR energy range of 3-79 keV. Using an auto correlation function analysis we searched for intraday variability timescales in these LCs and found indications of several between 2.5 and 32.8 ks in eight LCs of Mrk 421, a timescale around 8.0 ks for one LC of Mrk 501, and timescales of 29.6 ks and 57.4 ks in two LCs of PKS 2155-304. The other two blazars' LCs do not show any evid…
The sources of IceCube neutrinos are as yet unknown. The multi-messenger observation of their emission in $γ$-rays can be a guide to their identification, as exemplified by the case of TXS 0506+056. We suggest a new method of searching for $γ$-rays with Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes from sources in coincidence with possible astrophysical neutrinos. We propose that searches of $γ$-rays are extended, from the current practice of only a few days, to up to one month from a neutrino alert. We test this strategy on simulated sources modeled after the blazar \emph{TXS 0506+056-like}, emitting neut…
Context. Blazars are the most numerous class of High Energy (HE; E about 50 MeV - few 100 GeV) and Very High Energy (VHE; E about 100 GeV - 10 TeV) gamma-ray emitters. As of today, a measured spectroscopic redshift is available for only about 50% of gamma-ray BL Lacs, mainly due to the difficulty of measuring reliable redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum-dominated optical spectra. The knowledge of the redshift is fundamental for understanding the emission from blazars, for population studies and also for indirect studies of the extragalactic background light and searches for Lore…
We report on the Swift/XRT observation and classification of eleven blazar candidates at $z>4$. These sources were selected as part of a sample of extremely radio-loud quasars, in order to focus on quasars with jets oriented roughly close to our line-of-sight. Deriving their viewing angles and their jets bulk Lorentz factors was crucial for a strict blazar classification, and it was possible only thanks to X-ray observations. Out of eleven sources, five show strong and hard X-ray fluxes, that allow their blazar classification, two are uncertain, three host relativistic jets that we observe jus…
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) make up about 35 per cent of the more than 250 sources detected in very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays to date with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. Apart from four nearby radio galaxies and two AGNs of unknown type, all known VHE AGNs are blazars. Knowledge of the cosmological redshift of gamma-ray blazars is key to enabling the study of their intrinsic emission properties, as the interaction between gamma rays and the extragalactic background light (EBL) results in a spectral softening. Therefore, the redshift determination exercise is crucial to indirect…
Ultrahigh energy protons and nuclei from extragalactic cosmic ray sources initiate intergalactic electromagnetic cascades, resulting in observable fluxes of $γ$-rays in the GeV-TeV energy domain. The total spectrum of such cascade $γ$-rays of hadronic nature is significantly harder than the one usually expected from blazars. The spectra of some sources known as "extreme TeV blazars" could be well-described by this "intergalactic hadronic cascade model" (IHCM). We calculate the shape of the observable point-like spectrum, as well as the observable angular distibution of $γ$-rays, for the first …
Rapid flares from blazars in very high energy (VHE) $γ$-rays challenge the common understanding of jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The same population of ultra-relativistic electrons is often thought to be responsible for both X-ray and VHE emission. We thus systematically searched for X-ray flares at sub-hour timescales of TeV blazars in the entire Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer archival database. We found rapid flares from PKS 2005-489 and S5 0716+714, and a candidate rapid flare from 1ES 1101-232. In particular, the characteristic rise timescale of PKS 2005-489 is less than half a minut…
We report the detection of two new gamma-ray sources in the Fermi-LAT sky (Pass 8) at energies higher than 20 GeV, and confirmed at lower energies, using a source detection tool based on the Minimum Spanning Tree algorithm. One of these sources, at a Galactic latitude of about -4°, is a new discovery, while the other was previously reported above 50 GeV in the 2FHL catalogue. We searched for archival multi-wavelength data of possible counterparts and found interesting candidates. Both objects are radio sources and their WISE infrared colours are typical of blazars. While for the former source …
PKS 2023-07 is a flat spectrum radio quasar located at a redshift $z=1.388$, farther than any source currently detected at very high energies ($E>100$ GeV). At such energies, absorption by the extragalactic background light (EBL) renders the detection of distant sources particularly challenging. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) observed the source following reports from AGILE (April 2016) and Fermi-LAT (April 2016, September and October 2017) on high-flux states in gamma rays. During each of the three flaring periods, near-simultaneous observations were obtained with H.E.S.S., Fe…
One of the main scientific objectives of the ongoing Fermi mission is unveiling the nature of the unidentified gamma-ray sources (UGSs). Despite the large improvements of Fermi in the localization of gamma-ray sources with respect to the past gamma-ray missions, about one third of the Fermi-detected objects are still not associated to low energy counterparts. Recently, using the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) survey, we discovered that blazars, the rarest class of Active Galactic Nuclei and the largest population of gamma-ray sources, can be recognized and separated from other extr…
Several extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of Axion-Like Particles (ALPs), very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. ALPs can give rise to observable effects in very-high-energy astrophysics. Above roughly 100 GeV the horizon of the observable Universe progressively shrinks as the energy increases, due to scattering of beam photons off background photons in the optical and infrared bands, which produces e+e- pairs. In the presence of large-scale magnetic fields photons emitted by a blazar can oscillate into ALPs on the way to us and back into photons before re…
The main goal of the ANTARES neutrino telescope is the identification of neutrinos from cosmic accelerators. The good visibility towards the Southern sky for neutrino energies below 100 TeV and the good angular resolution for reconstructed events make the telescope excellent to test for the presence of point-like sources, especially of Galactic origin. The median angular resolution for track-like events (mainly from $ν_μ$ CC interactions) is $0.4^{\circ}$ while the median angular resolution for contained shower-like events (mainly from $ν_{e}$ CC and all-flavour NC interactions) is $3^{\circ}$…
The ANTARES observatory is currently the largest neutrino telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. It is well suited to detect high energy neutrinos produced in astrophysical sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all the times with a high duty cycle and an angular resolution about 0.4 degrees. Due to its location in the South of France, ANTARES is sensitive to up-going neutrinos from many potential galactic sources in the TeV to PeV energy regime. Results from a time-integrated unbinned method as well as the sensitivity of the detector using 2007-2010 data are presented. Moreo…
PKS 2131-021 -- Discovery of Strong Coherent Sinusoidal Variations from Radio to Optical Frequencies: Compelling Evidence for a Blazar Supermassive Black Hole Binary
The ANTARES neutrino telescope is currently the largest operating water Cherenkov detector and the largest neutrino detector in the Northern Hemisphere. Its main scientific target is the detection of high-energy (TeV and beyond) neutrinos from cosmic accelerators, as predicted by hadronic interaction models, and the measurement of the diffuse neutrino flux. Its location allows for surveying a large part of the Galactic Plane, including the Galactic Centre. In addition to the standalone searches for point-like and diffuse high-energy neutrino signals, ANTARES has developed a range of multi-mess…
Decaying axion-like particles (ALP) with masses in the eV range which might occupy dark matter halos of the Milky Way and other galaxies produce a characteristic "bump" feature in the spectrum of extragalactic background light (EBL). This feature leaves an imprint on the gamma-ray spectra of distant extragalactic sources. We derive constraints on the ALP coupling to photons based on analysis of spectra of very-high-energy gamma-ray loud blazars. We combine gamma-ray spectral measurements by Fermi/LAT and Cherenkov telescopes and fit a model in which the intrinsic source spectrum is modified by…
Most large galaxies host supermassive black holes in their nuclei and are subject to mergers, which can produce a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB), and hence periodic signatures due to orbital motion. We report unique periodic radio flux density variations in the blazar PKS~2131$-$021, which strongly suggest an SMBHB with an orbital separation of $\sim 0.001-0.01$ pc. Our 45.1-year radio light curve shows two epochs of strong sinusoidal variation with the same period and phase to within $<2\%$ and $\sim 10\%$, respectively, straddling a 20-year period when this variation was absent. Our …
The excess of neutrino candidate events detected by IceCube from the direction of TXS 0506+056 has generated a great deal of interest in blazars as sources of high-energy neutrinos. In this study, we analyze the publicly available portion of the IceCube dataset, performing searches for neutrino point sources in spatial coincidence with the blazars and other active galactic nuclei contained in the Fermi 3LAC and the Roma BZCAT catalogs, as well as in spatial and temporal coincidence with flaring sources identified in the Fermi Collaboration's All-Sky Variability Analysis (FAVA). We find no evid…
Optical spectroscopy of blazars for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory- IV
Universidad de Chile（智利大学）；Université Paris Cité, CNRS, CEA, Astroparticule et Cosmologie（巴黎西岱大学、法国国家科学研究中心、法国原子能和替代能源委员会、粒子物理与宇宙学研究所）；University of Namibia（纳米比亚大学）；Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校粒子物理研究所及物理系）；Laboratoire Univers et Théories, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, Université Paris Cité, CNRS（巴黎天文台宇宙与理论实验室、巴黎文理研究大学、巴黎西岱大学、法国国家科学研究中心）
The detection of the flaring gamma-ray blazar TXS 0506+056 in spatial and temporal coincidence with the high-energy neutrino IC-170922A represents a milestone for multi-messenger astronomy. The prompt multi-wavelength coverage from several ground- and space-based facilities of this special event was enabled thanks to the key role of the $\textit{Fermi}$-Large Area Telescope (LAT), continuously monitoring the gamma-ray sky. Exceptional variable and transient events, such as bright gamma-ray flares of blazars, are regularly reported to the whole astronomical community to enable prompt multi-wave…
A morphological search for stable year-scale modulation in gamma-ray blazars
Universidad Complutense de Madrid（马德里康普顿斯大学）；Clemson University（克莱姆森大学）；Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg（维尔茨堡朱利叶斯-马克西米利安大学）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步辐射中心）
Since the discovery of a neutrino flux in excess of the atmospheric background by the IceCube Collaboration, searches for the astrophysical sources have been ongoing. Due to the steeply falling background towards higher energies, the PeV events detected in three years of IceCube data are the most likely ones to be of extraterrestrial origin. Even excluding the PeV events detected so far, the neutrino flux is well above the atmospheric background, so it is likely that a number of sub-PeV events originate from the same astrophysical sources that produce the PeV events. We study the high-energy p…
Since the detection of high energy astrophysical neutrinos in IceCube, there has been a search for their sources. Although recent evidence of neutrinos from a flaring blazar could explain some of the neutrino flux, sources for the remainder are still unknown. This analysis searches for neutrinos produced via interactions between diffuse intergalactic Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) and matter. In this work the local galaxy density serves as the target for cosmic ray interactions, thus neutrinos produced from these interactions are expected to trace the galaxies spatially. The spatial dis…
