Astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA revealed the mystery of the origin of the anomalous high-energy neutrinos recorded by IceCube Observatory in the ice of Antarctica. Scientists have developed a model in which the source of these objects are supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. This was reported in an article published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Unusual neutrino fluxes whose energy reached 16 teraelectronvolt — 2.6 tatelektromash was discovered in the analysis of IceCube data collected from 2010 to 2015. Their source is distant astrophysical objects outside the milky Way. However, scientists are unable to associate the origin of high-energy neutrinos from extragalactic gamma-rays, indicating that the sources of neutrinos are hidden, i.e. not sending gamma rays of high energies (of the order of GeV or teraelectronvolt) in space. On the other hand, the best-known sources of high-energy radiation is the nuclei of active galaxies, where supermassive black holes.
In the new work, researchers have proposed the mechanism of high-energy neutrinos in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole surrounded by a dense accretion disk that prevent the spread of gamma rays. Astronomers developed a model based on observations of Seyfert galaxies (a type of galaxies with active nuclei), for which the well known energy distribution of the radiation spectrum. These objects emit radio waves and infrared radiation (occurs in the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the galactic core), optical and ultraviolet light (in the accretion disk) and x-ray radiation (in the crown of a black hole).
According to the model, in the crown of a black hole is present in the plasma, and the turbulence it accelerates protons to energies of the order of tatelektromash, causing them to emit high-energy neutrinos. In addition, this mechanism is associated with the emission of gamma rays with energies of order of MeV, so the search for sources of this type of radiation will help to find sources of neutrinos. Of interest to future observations with neutrino detectors present the nearest Seyfert galaxies, e.g., M-77 in the constellation of the whale.
IceCube is a largest neutrino Observatory in the world. It consists of more than five thousand optical detectors (photomultipliers) set of 60 pieces in separate wells, the depth of which reaches 2.5 km. Photomultipliers register the muons generated by muon neutrinos coming from the Northern side of the Earth.
