Neutrinos, Cosmic Rays and the MeV Band
Abstract
The possible association of the blazar TXS 0506+056 with a high-energy neutrino detected by IceCube holds the tantalizing potential to answer three astrophysical questions: 1. Where do high-energy neutrinos originate? 2. Where are cosmic rays produced and accelerated? 3. What radiation mechanisms produce the high-energy {\gamma}-rays in blazars? The MeV gamma-ray band holds the key to these questions, because it is an excellent proxy for photo-hadronic processes in blazar jets, which also produce neutrino counterparts. Variability in MeV gamma-rays sheds light on the physical conditions and mechanisms that take place in the particle acceleration sites in blazar jets. In addition, hadronic blazar models also predict a high level of polarization fraction in the MeV band, which can unambiguously distinguish the radiation mechanism. Future MeV missions with a large field of view, high sensitivity, and polarization capabilities will play a central role in multi-messenger astronomy, since pointed, high-resolution telescopes will follow neutrino alerts only when triggered by an all-sky instrument.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.05765,
title = {Neutrinos, Cosmic Rays and the MeV Band},
author = {R. Ojha and H. Zhang and M. Kadler and N. K. Neilson and M. Kreter and J. McEnery and S. Buson and R. Caputo and P. Coppi and F. D'Ammando and A. De Angelis and K. Fang and D. Giannios and S. Guiriec and F. Guo and J. Kopp and F. Krauss and H. Li and M. Meyer and A. Moiseev and M. Petropoulou and C. Prescod-Weinstein and B. Rani and C. Shrader and T. Venters and Z. Wadiasingh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.05765},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
White paper submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey