High-energy neutrinos from blazars

Identifying the origin of the majority of high-energy cosmic neutrinos observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory remains a significant challenge. Previous studies reported evidence of a spatial correlation between blazars listed in the 5th Roma-BZCat catalog and IceCube neutrino data in the south...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Buson S., Azzollini A., Pfeiffer L., Boughelilba M., Marchesi S., Lincetto M., Sanchez Zaballa J. M., Bremer A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: EDP Sciences 2025-01-01
Series:EPJ Web of Conferences
Online Access:https://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2025/04/epjconf_ricap2024_04001.pdf
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Summary:Identifying the origin of the majority of high-energy cosmic neutrinos observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory remains a significant challenge. Previous studies reported evidence of a spatial correlation between blazars listed in the 5th Roma-BZCat catalog and IceCube neutrino data in the southern celestial hemisphere. The statistical significance of this correlation was determined to be 2 × 10−6 after accounting for trials. In subsequent work, we investigated whether a similar correlation exists in the northern hemisphere, where IceCube predominantly detects neutrinos with energies ≲ 0.1 PeV. Our analysis reveals a consistent correlation between blazars and neutrino data in the northern hemisphere, with a pre-trial p-value of 5.12 × 10−4 and a post-trial chance probability of 6.79 × 10−3. By combining the post-trial probabilities from the southern and northern studies, we find a global post-trial probability of 2.59 × 10−7, suggesting that the observed correlation is unlikely to occur by chance. Theoretical modeling of one of these proposed neutrino-associated objects suggests that proton interactions with external radiation fields can generate a neutrino flux detectable by IceCube. These results further support the hypothesis that blazars are promising candidates for high-energy cosmic neutrino sources.
ISSN:2100-014X