On the Detection Potential of Blazar Flares for Current Neutrino Telescopes

Kreter M, Kadler M, Krauss F, Mannheim K, Buson S, Ojha R, Wilms J, Bottcher M (2020)


Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Book Volume: 902

Journal Issue: 2

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abb5b1

Abstract

Blazar jets are extreme environments, in which relativistic proton interactions with an ultraviolet photon field could give rise to photopion production. High-confidence associations of individual high-energy neutrinos with blazar flares could be achieved via spatially and temporally coincident detections. In 2017, the track-like, extremely high-energy neutrino event IC 170922A was found to coincide with increased gamma-ray emission from the blazar TXS 0506+056, leading to the identification of the most promising neutrino point-source candidate so far. We calculate the expected number of neutrino events that can be detected with IceCube, based on a broadband parameterization of bright short-term blazar flares that were observed in the first 6.5 yr of Fermi/Large Area Telescope observations. We find that the integrated keV-to-GeV fluence of most individual blazar flares is far too small to yield a substantial Poisson probability for the detection of one or more neutrinos with IceCube. We show that the sample of potentially detectable high-energy neutrinos from individual blazar flares is rather small. We further show that the blazars 3C 279 and PKS 1510-089 dominate the all-sky neutrino prediction from bright and short-term blazar flares. In the end, we discuss strategies to search for more significant associations in future data unblindings of IceCube and KM3NeT.

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APA:

Kreter, M., Kadler, M., Krauss, F., Mannheim, K., Buson, S., Ojha, R.,... Bottcher, M. (2020). On the Detection Potential of Blazar Flares for Current Neutrino Telescopes. Astrophysical Journal, 902(2). https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abb5b1

MLA:

Kreter, M., et al. "On the Detection Potential of Blazar Flares for Current Neutrino Telescopes." Astrophysical Journal 902.2 (2020).

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