The Astrophysical Journal<\/em><\/a>, a team of Russian scientists argue that neutrinos of energies in the tens of TeV are also emitted by quasars. The team found that almost all high-energy astrophysical neutrinos are born in quasars. Some neutrinos are born in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, and even in the Ice Cube detector itself during the interaction of cosmic rays with matter.<\/p>\nChief researcher of INR RAS and co-author of the discovery from LPI and MIPT, Yuri Kovalev, said: \u201cIt is amazing, since for the production of neutrinos with energies that differ by a factor of 100-1000 different physical conditions are required. The mechanisms of neutrino production in active galactic nuclei discussed earlier worked only at high energies. We have proposed a new mechanism for neutrino production in quasars, which explains the results obtained. While this is an approximate model, it is necessary to work on it, to carry out computer simulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The link between high-energy neutrinos and tidal disruption events<\/h3>\n
Using ground- and space-based facilities, including NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, astronomers have linked high-energy neutrinos to an object outside our galaxy. The team traced the neutrino to a black hole tearing apart a star in a tidal disruption event.<\/p>\n
Robert Stein, a doctoral student at the German Electron-Synchrotron (DESY) research centre in Zeuthen, Germany, and Humboldt University in Berlin, said: \u201cAstrophysicists have long theorised that tidal disruptions could produce high-energy neutrinos, but this is the first time we\u2019ve actually been able to connect them with observational evidence. But it seems like this particular event, called AT2019dsg, didn\u2019t generate the neutrino when or how we expected. It\u2019s helping us better understand how these phenomena work.\u201d<\/p>\n
AT2019dsg was discovered on 9 April 2019, by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a robotic camera at Caltech\u2019s Palomar Observatory in Southern California. The event occurred over 690 million light-years away in a galaxy called 2MASX J20570298+1412165, located in the constellation Delphinus.<\/p>\n
Detecting high-energy neutrinos<\/h3>\n
Then, on 1 October 2019, the National Science Foundation\u2019s IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica detected a high-energy neutrino called IC191001A and followed its trajectory to a location in the sky. About seven hours later, researchers at ZTF noted that this same patch of sky included AT2019dsg. Stein and his team think there is a one in 500 chance that the tidal disruption is not the neutrino\u2019s source.<\/p>\n
Swift Principal Investigator S. Bradley Cenko at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, said: \u201cTidal disruption events are incredibly rare phenomena, only occurring once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a large galaxy like our own. Astronomers have only observed a few dozen at this point. Multiwavelength measurements of each event help us learn more about them as a class, so AT2019dsg was of great interest even without an initial neutrino detection.\u201d<\/p>\n
AT2019dsg\u2019s UV emissions from its hot accretion disks plateaued shortly after they peaked, which is unusual because such plateaus typically appear only after a few years. The researchers suspect the galaxy\u2019s black hole, with a mass estimated at 30 million times the Sun\u2019s, could have forced the stellar debris to settle into a disk more quickly than it might have around a less massive black hole.<\/p>\n
Why AT2019dsg\u2019s X-ray emissions fade so quickly<\/h3>\n
Scientists think the X-rays come from either the inner part of the accretion disk, close to the black hole, or from high-speed particle jets. Stein\u2019s team does not see clear evidence indicating the presence of jets and instead suggests rapid cooling in the disk most likely explains the precipitous drop in X-rays, which faded by 98% over 160 days.<\/p>\n
An alternative explanation, authored by DESY\u2019s Walter Winter and Cecilia Lunardini, a professor at Arizona State University, USA, proposes that the emission came from a jet that was quickly obscured by a cloud of debris. The researchers published their alternative interpretation in Nature Astronomy<\/em>.<\/p>\nMany astronomers believe that radio emission in these phenomena come from the black hole accelerating particles, either in jets or more moderate outflows. Stein\u2019s team have categorised AT2019dsg into the latter category. The scientists also discovered that the radio emission continued steadily for months and did not fade along with the visible and UV light, as previously assumed.<\/p>\n
The neutrino detection, combined with the multiwavelength measurements, prompted Stein and his colleagues to rethink how tidal disruptions might produce high-energy neutrinos. The radio emission shows that particle acceleration happens even without clear, powerful jets and can operate well after peak UV and visible brightness. Stein and his colleagues suggest those accelerated particles could produce neutrinos in three distinct regions of the tidal disruption: in the outer disk through collisions with UV light, in the inner disk through collisions with X-rays, and in the moderate outflow of particles through collisions with other particles.<\/p>\n
Stein\u2019s team suggests AT2019dsg\u2019s neutrino likely originated from the UV-bright outer part of the disk, because the particle\u2019s energy was more than 10 times greater than can be achieved by particle colliders.<\/p>\n
Co-author Sjoert van Velzen, an assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said: \u201cWe predicted that neutrinos and tidal disruptions could be related, and seeing that for the first time in the data is just very exciting. This is another example of the power of multi-messenger astronomy, using a combination of light, particles, and space-time ripples to learn more about the cosmos. When I was a graduate student, it was often predicted this new era of astronomy was coming, but now to actually be part of it is very rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory, and the Italian Space Agency in Italy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New research led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has identified a link between high-energy neutrinos and tidal disruption events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,24429],"tags":[801,821],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
High-energy neutrinos and tidal disruption events<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n