A Census of Variable and Transient Radio Sources Within High-Energy Neutrino Fields

Abstract

The origin of high-energy cosmic neutrinos detected by the IceCube observatory is a hotly debated topic in astroparticle physics. Neutrinos can be produced via interactions of high-energy protons with photons. There are multiple candidate source classes which can accelerate cosmic particles to the energies required to emit high-energy cosmic neutrinos and which have in common that they lead to variable/transient radio emissions. However, so far only a few active galactic nuclei (AGNs) could be associated with high confidence with IceCube neutrinos. The bulk of the diffuse neutrino flux might be emitted from a rather faint and numerous source population. The sub-mJy low-frequency radio sky may harbor these neutrino emitters that have gone unnoticed in previous searches. SKA-Mid continuum observations of high-energy neutrino fields will yield the most complete census of coincident transient and variable radio sources that might be associated with the neutrino emission. In previous MeerKAT observations of the IceCube gold alert IC240929A at 815 MHz, we detect about 550 faint radio sources inside the 90% uncertainty region of this neutrino field with flux densities between $169\,\mathrm{\mu Jy}$ and $140\,\mathrm{mJy}$. In its AA4 configuration, SKA-Mid will achieve about four times the sensitivity of MeerKAT, allowing for the detection of even fainter radio sources within such neutrino fields. By adding wide-field VLBI analysis of the fields under consideration, all neutrino-candidate radio sources can be tested for high brightness-temperature compact emission (indicative of an AGN classification) and milliarcsecond-scale resolved structures.