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Register a new userHigh-Energy Neutrino Production in Clusters of Galaxies
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Clusters of galaxies can potentially produce cosmic rays (CRs) up to very-high energies via large-scale shocks and turbulent acceleration. Due to their unique magnetic-field configuration, CRs with energy $leq 10^{17}$ eV can be trapped within these structures over cosmological time scales, and generate secondary particles, including neutrinos and gamma rays, through interactions with the background gas and photons. In this work, we compute the contribution from clusters of galaxies to the diffuse neutrino background. We employ three-dimensional cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of structure formation to model the turbulent intergalactic medium. We use the distribution of clusters within this cosmological volume to extract the properties of this population, including mass, magnetic field, temperature, and density. We propagate CRs in this environment using multi-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations across different redshifts (from $z sim 5$ to $z =0$), considering all relevant photohadronic, photonuclear, and hadronuclear interaction processes. We find that, for CRs injected with a spectral index $alpha = 1.5 - 2.7$ and cutoff energy $E_text{max} = 10^{16} - 5times10^{17} ; text{eV}$, clusters contribute to a sizeable fraction to the diffuse flux observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, but most of the contribution comes from clusters with $M gtrsim 10^{14} ; M_{odot}$ and redshift $ z lesssim 0.3$. If we include the cosmological evolution of the CR sources, this flux can be even higher.
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Cosmic-ray protons accumulate for cosmological times in clusters of galaxies as their typical radiative and diffusive escape times are longer than the Hubble time. Their hadronic interactions with protons of the intra-cluster medium generate secondary electrons, gamma-rays and neutrinos. We here estimate the contribution from clusters to the diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds. We model the cluster population by means of their mass function, using a phenomenological luminosity-mass relation applied to all clusters, as well as a detailed semi-analytical model. Additionally, we consider observationally-motivated values for the cluster magnetic field. This is a crucial parameter since the observed radio counts due to synchrotron emission by secondary electrons need to be respected. For a choice of parameters respecting all current constraints, and assuming a spectral index of -2, we find that hadronic interactions in clusters contribute by less than 10% to the extragalactic gamma-ray background observed by Fermi and to the IceCube flux. They account for less than 1% for spectral indices <=-2. The neutrino flux observed by IceCube can be reproduced without violating constraints only if a very hard (and speculative) spectral index >-2 is adopted. However, this scenario is in tension with the IceCube data, which seem to suggest a spectral energy distribution of the neutrino flux that decreases with energy. In the case of proton-photon interactions, we find that very likely protons do not reach sufficiently high energies to produce neutrinos in clusters. We argue that our results are optimistic due to our assumptions, and that clusters of galaxies cannot give any relevant contribution to the extragalactic gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds. Finally, we find that the cluster contribution to the angular fluctuations in the gamma-ray background is subdominant, less than 10%. [abridged]
A new class of low-power compact radio sources with limited jet structures, named FR0, is emerging from recent radio-optical surveys. This abundant population of radio galaxies, five times more numerous than FRIs in the local Universe (z$<$0.05), represent a potentially interesting target at high and very-high energies (greater than 100 GeV), as demonstrated by a single case of Fermi detection. Furthermore, these radio galaxies have been recently claimed to contribute non-negligibly to the extra-galactic $gamma$-ray background and to be possible cosmic neutrino emitters. Here, we review the radio through X-ray properties of FR0s to predict their high-energy emission (from MeV to TeV), in light of the near-future facilities operating in this band.
The correlation between active galactic nuclei (AGN) and environment provides important clues to AGN fueling and the relationship of black hole growth to galaxy evolution. In this paper, we analyze the fraction of galaxies in clusters hosting AGN as a function of redshift and cluster richness for X-ray detected AGN associated with clusters of galaxies in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data. The present sample includes 33 AGN with L_X > 10^43 ergs s^-1 in non-central, host galaxies with luminosity greater than 0.5 L* from a total sample of 432 clusters in the redshift range of 0.1<z<0.95. Analysis of the present sample reveals that the AGN fraction in red-sequence cluster members has a strong positive correlation with redshift such that the AGN fraction increases by a factor of ~8 from low to high redshift, and the fraction of cluster galaxies hosting AGN at high redshifts is greater than the low-redshift fraction at 3.6 sigma. In particular, the AGN fraction increases steeply at the highest redshifts in our sample at z>0.7. This result is in good agreement with previous work and parallels the increase in star formation in cluster galaxies over the same redshift range. However, the AGN fraction in clusters is observed to have no significant correlation with cluster mass. Future analyses with DES Year 1 through Year 3 data will be able to clarify whether AGN activity is correlated to cluster mass and will tightly constrain the relationship between cluster AGN populations and redshift.
We investigate the possibility that radio-bright active galactic nuclei (AGN) are responsible for the TeV--PeV neutrinos detected by IceCube. We use an unbinned maximum-likelihood-ratio method, 10 years of IceCube muon-track data, and 3388 radio-bright AGN selected from the Radio Fundamental Catalog. None of the AGN in the catalog have a large global significance. The two most significant sources have global significance of $simeq$ 1.5$sigma$ and 0.8$sigma$, though 4.1$sigma$ and 3.8$sigma$ local significance. Our stacking analyses show no significant correlation between the whole catalog and IceCube neutrinos. We infer from the null search that this catalog can account for at most 30% (95% CL) of the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux measured by IceCube. Moreover, our results disagree with recent work that claimed a 4.1$sigma$ detection of neutrinos from the sources in this catalog, and we discuss the reasons of the difference.
Investigating how the cutoff energy $E_{rm cut}$ varies with X-ray flux and photon index $Gamma$ in individual AGNs opens a new window to probe the yet unclear coronal physics. So far $E_{rm cut}$ variations have only been detected in several AGNs but different patterns have been reported. Here we report new detections of $E_{rm cut}$ variations in two Seyfert galaxies with multiple NuSTAR exposures. While in NGC 3227 $E_{rm cut}$ monotonically increases with $Gamma$, the $E_{rm cut}$-$Gamma$ relation exhibits a $Lambda$ shape in SWIFT J2127.4+5654 ($E_{rm cut}$ increasing with $Gamma$ at $Gamma$ $lesssim$ 2.05, but reversely decreasing at $Gamma$ $gtrsim$ 2.05), indicating more than a single underlying mechanism is involved. Meanwhile both galaxies show softer spectra while they brighten in X-ray, a common phenomenon in Seyfert galaxies. Plotting all 7 AGNs with $E_{rm cut}$ variations ever reported with NuSTAR observations in the $E_{rm cut}$-$Gamma$ diagram, we find they could be unified with the $Lambda$ pattern. Although the sample is small and SWIFT J2127.4+5654 is the only source with $Gamma$ varying across the break point thus the only one exhibiting the complete $Lambda$ pattern in a single source, the discoveries shed new light on the coronal physics in AGNs. Possible underlying physical mechanisms are discussed.
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