High-energy neutrinos from reverse shocks in choked and successful relativistic jets

Highly relativistic jets are a key element of current gamma-ray burst models, where the jet kinetic energy is converted to radiation energy at optically thin shocks. High-energy neutrinos are also expected, from interactions of protons accelerated in the same shocks. Here we revisit the early evolution of a relativistic jet, while the jet is still inside the star, and investigate its neutrino emission. In particular we study propagation of mildly relativistic and ultrarelativistic jets through a type Ib progenitor, and follow reverse shocks as the jets cross the star. We show that protons can be accelerated to 10^4-10^5 GeV at reverse shocks, and efficiently produce mesons. The mesons experience significant cooling, suppressing subsequent neutrino emission. We show, however, that the neutrino yield from the reverse shock is still reasonably large, especially for low-luminosity and long-duration jets, where meson cooling is less severe. We discuss implications of our results in the context of neutrinos from choked jets, which are completely shock heated and do not break out of the star. From a choked jet with isotropic equivalent energy of 10^{53} erg at 10 Mpc, we expect ~20 neutrino events at IceCube.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in Physical Review

Dark matter annihilation from intermediate-mass black holes: Contribution to the extragalactic gamma-ray background

We investigate contributions to the extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB) due to neutralino dark matter (DM) pair-annihilation into photons, from DM density enhancements (minispikes) surrounding intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). We focus on two IMBH formation scenarios; our conservative scenario where IMBHs are remnants of Population-III stars, and our optimistic scenario here IMBHs are formed in protogalactic disks. In both scenarios, their formation in pregalactic halos at high redshift lead to the formation of minispikes that are bright sources of gamma-ray photons. Taking into account minispike depletion processes, we only sum contributions from a cosmological distribution of IMBHs with maintained minispikes. Our conservative scenario (BH mass 10^2 M_sun with a r^{-3/2} minispike) predicts gamma-ray fluxes that are an order larger than the equivalent flux, using the same DM parameters (mass 100 GeV and annihilation cross-section 3 \times 10^{-26} cm^3 s^{-1}, from the host halo without IMBH minispikes. Our optimistic scenario (BH mass 10^5 M_sun with a r^{-7/3} minispike) predicts fluxes that are three orders larger, that can reach current EGB observations taken by EGRET (DM parameters as above). This fact may serve interesting consequences for constraining DM parameters and elucidating the true nature of IMBHs. Additionally, we determine the spectra of DM annihilation into monochromatic gamma-rays, and show that its flux can be within observational range of GLAST, providing a potential `smoking-gun' signature of DM.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Diffuse neutrino background from past core-collapse supernovae

Core-collapse supernovae are among the most powerful explosions in the universe, emitting thermal neutrinos that carry away the majority of the gravitational binding energy released. These neutrinos create a diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), one of the largest energy budgets among all radiation backgrounds. Detecting the DSNB is a crucial goal of modern high-energy astrophysics and particle physics, providing valuable insights in both core-collapse modeling, neutrino physics, and cosmic supernova rate history. In this review, we discuss the key ingredients of DSNB calculation and what we can learn from future detections, including black-hole formation and non-standard neutrino interactions. Additionally, we provide an overview of the latest updates in neutrino experiments, which could lead to the detection of the DSNB in the next decade. With the promise of this breakthrough discovery on the horizon, the study of DSNB holds enormous potential for advancing our understanding of the Universe.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures. Invited review article submitted to Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B. Figures are made using the numerical codes that accompany this paper; see https://github.com/shinichiroando/PyDSNB/tree/mai

Non-thermal neutrinos from supernovae leaving a magnetar

Under the fossil field hypothesis of the origin of magnetar magnetic fields, the magnetar inherits its magnetic field from its progenitor. We show that during the supernova of such a progenitor, protons may be accelerated to ∼10^4 GeV as the supernova shock propagates in the stellar envelope. Inelastic nuclear collisions of these protons produce a flash of high-energy neutrinos arriving a few hours after thermal (10 MeV) neutrinos. The neutrino flash is characterized by energies up to O(100) GeV and durations seconds to hours, depending on the progenitor: those from smaller Type Ibc progenitors are typically shorter in duration and reach higher energies compared to those from larger Type II progenitors. A Galactic Type Ib supernova leaving behind a magnetar remnant will yield up to ∼160 neutrino-induced muon events in Super-Kamiokande, and up to ∼7000 in a km^3 class detector such as IceCube, providing a means of probing supernova models and the presence of strong magnetic fields in the stellar envelope

Cross Correlation of the Extragalactic Gamma-ray Background with Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Cosmic rays in galaxy clusters are unique probes of energetic processes operating with large-scale structures in the Universe. Precise measurements of cosmic rays in galaxy clusters are essential for improving our understanding of non-thermal components in the intracluster-medium (ICM) as well as the accuracy of cluster mass estimates in cosmological analyses. In this paper, we perform a cross-correlation analysis with the extragalactic gamma-ray background and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect in the cosmic microwave background. The expected cross-correlation signal would contain rich information about the cosmic-ray-induced gamma-ray emission in the most massive galaxy clusters at $z\sim0.1-0.2$. We analyze the gamma-ray background map with 8 years of data taken by the Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi satellite and the publicly available tSZ map by Planck. We confirm that the measured cross-correlation is consistent with a null detection, and thus it enables us to put the tightest constraint on the acceleration efficiency of cosmic ray protons at shocks in and around galaxy clusters. We find the acceleration efficiency must be below 5\% with a $2\sigma$ confidence level when the hydrostatic mass bias of clusters is assumed to be 30\%, and our result is not significantly affected by the assumed value of the hydrostatic mass bias. Our constraint implies that the non-thermal cosmic-ray pressure in the ICM can introduce only a $\le 3\%$ level of the hydrostatic mass bias, highlighting that cosmic rays alone do not account for the mass bias inferred by the Planck analyses. Finally, we discuss future detectability prospects of cosmic-ray-induced gamma rays from the Perseus cluster for the Cherenkov Telescope Array.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The Andromeda Gamma-Ray Excess: Background Systematics of the Millisecond Pulsars and Dark Matter Interpretations

Since the discovery of an excess in gamma rays in the direction of M31, its cause has been unclear. Published interpretations focus on a dark matter or stellar related origin. Studies of a similar excess in the Milky Way center motivate a correlation of the spatial morphology of the signal with the distribution of stellar mass in M31. However, a robust determination of the best theory for the observed excess emission is very challenging due to large uncertainties in the astrophysical gamma-ray foreground model. Here we perform a spectro-morphological analysis of the M31 gamma-ray excess using state-of-the-art templates for the distribution of stellar mass in M31 and novel astrophysical foreground models for its sky region. We construct maps for the old stellar populations of M31 based on observational data from the PAndAS survey and carefully remove the foreground stars. We also produce improved astrophysical foreground models by using novel image inpainting techniques based on machine learning methods. We find that our stellar maps, taken as a proxy for the location of a putative population of millisecond pulsars in the bulge of M31, reach a statistical significance of $5.4\sigma$, making them as strongly favoured as the simple phenomenological models usually considered in the literature, e.g., a disk-like template with uniform brightness. Our detection of the stellar templates is robust to generous variations of the astrophysical foreground model. Once the stellar templates are included in the astrophysical model, we show that the dark matter annihilation interpretation of the signal is unwarranted. Using the results of a binary population synthesis model we demonstrate that a population of about one million unresolved MSPs could naturally explain the observed gamma-ray luminosity per stellar mass, energy spectrum, and stellar bulge-to-disk flux ratio.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, comments are welcom

Cherenkov Telescope Array sensitivity to the putative millisecond pulsar population responsible for the Galactic center excess

The leading explanation of the $\textit{Fermi}$ Galactic center $\gamma$-ray excess is the extended emission from a unresolved population of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the Galactic bulge. Such a population would, along with the prompt $\gamma$ rays, also inject large quantities of electrons/positrons ($e^\pm$) into the interstellar medium. These $e^\pm$ could potentially inverse-Compton (IC) scatter ambient photons into $\gamma$ rays that fall within the sensitivity range of the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this article, we examine the detection potential of CTA to this signature by making a realistic estimation of the systematic uncertainties on the Galactic diffuse emission model at TeV-scale $\gamma$-ray energies. We forecast that, in the event that $e^\pm$ injection spectra are harder than $E^{-2}$, CTA has the potential to robustly discover the IC signature of a putative Galactic bulge MSP population sufficient to explain the GCE for $e^\pm$ injection efficiencies in the range $\approx 2.9-74.1\%$, or higher, depending on the level of mismodeling of the Galactic diffuse emission components. On the other hand, for spectra softer than $E^{-2.5}$, a reliable CTA detection would require an unphysically large $e^\pm$ injection efficiency of $\gtrsim 158\%$. However, even this pessimistic conclusion may be avoided in the plausible event that MSP observational and/or modeling uncertainties can be reduced. We further find that, in the event that an IC signal were detected, CTA can successfully discriminate between an MSP and a dark matter origin for the radiating $e^\pm$.Comment: 21+6 pages, 12+5 figures. Updated to match version soon to be published by MNRA

Non-Universal Stellar Initial Mass Functions: Large Uncertainties in Star Formation Rates at z≈2−4z\approx 2-4 and Other Astrophysical Probes

We explore the assumption, widely used in many astrophysical calculations, that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is universal across all galaxies. By considering both a canonical Salpeter-like IMF and a non-universal IMF, we are able to compare the effect of different IMFs on multiple observables and derived quantities in astrophysics. Specifically, we consider a non-universal IMF which varies as a function of the local star formation rate, and explore the effects on the star formation rate density (SFRD), the extragalactic background light, the supernova (both core-collapse and thermonuclear) rates, and the diffuse supernova neutrino background. Our most interesting result is that our adopted varying IMF leads to much greater uncertainty on the SFRD at $z \approx 2-4$ than is usually assumed. Indeed, we find a SFRD (inferred using observed galaxy luminosity distributions) that is a factor of $\gtrsim 3$ lower than canonical results obtained using a universal Salpeter-like IMF. Secondly, the non-universal IMF we explore implies a reduction in the supernova core-collapse rate of a factor of $\sim2$, compared against a universal IMF. The other potential tracers are only slightly affected by changes to the properties of the IMF. We find that currently available data do not provide a clear preference for universal or non-universal IMF. However, improvements to measurements of the star formation rate and core-collapse supernova rate at redshifts $z \gtrsim 2$ may offer the best prospects for discernment.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, 1 appendi