Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are a promising source for high-energy astrophysical neutrinos (HEANs). In 2024, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (Rubin) will begin to observe $\ensuremath{\gtrsim}10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{million}$ AGN with a regular and high cadence. Here, we evaluate the capacity of Rubin, in tandem with various current and upcoming neutrino telescopes, to establish AGN as HEAN emitters. To do so, we assume that the neutrino luminosity from any given AGN at any given time is proportional to the electromagnetic luminosity. We then estimate the error with which this fraction can be measured through spatial and temporal cross-correlation of Rubin light curves with IceCube, KM3NeT, and Bakail-GVD. We find that it may be possible to detect AGN contributions at the $\ensuremath{\sim}3\ensuremath{\sigma}$ level to the HEAN flux even if these AGN contribute only $\ensuremath{\sim}10%$ of the HEAN flux. The bulk of this information comes from spatial correlations, although the temporal information improves the sensitivity a bit. The results also imply that if an angular correlation is detected with high signal-to-noise, there may be prospects to detect a correlation between AGN variability and neutrino arrival times. The small HEAN fraction estimated here to be accessible to the entirety of the Rubin AGN sample suggests that valuable information on the character of the emitting AGN may be obtained through similar analyses on different subpopulations of AGN.
Authors: Cyril Creque-Sarbinowski, Marc Kamionkowski, Bei Zhou
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3213299673