arXiv · 2311.13711
Neutrino signal from Cygnus region of the Milky Way
Abstract
Interactions of cosmic ray protons and nuclei in their sources and in the interstellar medium produce "hadronic" gamma-ray emission. Gamma-rays can also be of "leptonic" origin, i.e. originating from high-energy electrons accelerated together with protons. It is difficult to distinguish between hadronic and leptonic emission mechanisms based on gamma-ray data alone. This can be done via detection of neutrinos, because only hadronic processes lead to neutrino production. We use publicly available ten-year IceCube neutrino telescope dataset to demonstrate the hadronic nature of high-energy emission from the direction of Cygnus region of the Milky Way. We find a 3-sigma excess of neutrino events from an extended Cygnus Cocoon, with the flux comparable to the flux of gamma-rays in the multi-TeV energy range seen by HAWC and LHAASO telescopes.
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A. Neronov, D. Semikoz, D. Savchenko. 2023-11-22. Neutrino signal from Cygnus region of the Milky Way. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.13711
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