Search for High-energy Neutrinos from Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with IceCube

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 926; no. 1; pp. 59 - 73
• Main Authors: Abbasi, R., Anton, G., Argüelles, C., Axani, S., Bai, X., V., A. Balagopal, Binder, G., Braun, J., Brostean-Kaiser, J., Browne, S., Burgman, A., Busse, R. S., Chen, C., Chirkin, D., Choi, K., Collin, G. H., Cowen, D. F., DeLaunay, J. J., Desai, A., Dharani, S., Dittmer, M., Dujmovic, H., Ehrhardt, T., Engel, R., Evenson, P. A., Fan, K. L., Fazely, A. R., Filimonov, K., Franckowiak, A., Fürst, P., Goldschmidt, A., Halliday, R., Hauser, S., Hoshina, K., Huber, T., Hünnefeld, M., Japaridze, G. S., Kang, X., Kappes, A., Kontrimas, T., Koskinen, D. J., Koundal, P., Kovacevich, M., Leonard, K., Liubarska, M., Lyu, Y., Madsen, J., Mahn, K. B. M., Maruyama, R., Mead, J. V., Micallef, J., Mockler, D., Montaruli, T., Naab, R., Necker, J., Nguyễn, L. V., Niederhausen, H., Oehler, M., Pandya, H., Pankova, D. V., Park, N., Paudel, E. N., Peters, L., Pittermann, M., Pizzuto, A., Plum, M., Raab, C., Rea, I. C., Renzi, G., Resconi, E., Riedel, B., Robertson, S., Roellinghoff, G., Sarkar, S., Satalecka, K., Schlunder, P., Schneider, J., Schumacher, L., Seunarine, S., Shefali, S., Silva, M., Smithers, B., Soedingrekso, J., Stachurska, J., Stamatikos, M., Steuer, A., Taboada, I., Tenholt, F., Tischbein, F., Tomankova, L., Tosi, D., Trettin, A., Tselengidou, M., Turcotte, R., Ty, B., Elorrieta, M. A. Unland, van Eijndhoven, N., Vannerom, D., Williams, D. R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 01.02.2022; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Active galactic nuclei; Astrophysics; Confidence intervals; Fluctuations; Galaxies; High energy astrophysics; Infrared astronomy; Neutrino astronomy; Neutrinos; Red shift; South Pole; Space telescopes; Star & galaxy formation; Star formation; Stars & galaxies; Ultraluminous infrared galaxies
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac3cb6

Abstract Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities L IR ≥ 10 12 L ⊙ , making them the most luminous objects in the infrared sky. These dusty objects are generally powered by starbursts with star formation rates that exceed 100 M ⊙ yr −1 , possibly combined with a contribution from an active galactic nucleus. Such environments make ULIRGs plausible sources of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos, which can be observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. We present a stacking search for high-energy neutrinos from a representative sample of 75 ULIRGs with redshift z ≤ 0.13 using 7.5 yr of IceCube data. The results are consistent with a background-only observation, yielding upper limits on the neutrino flux from these 75 ULIRGs. For an unbroken E −2.5 power-law spectrum, we report an upper limit on the stacked flux Φ ν μ + ν ¯ μ 90 % = 3.24 × 10 − 14 TeV − 1 cm − 2 s − 1 ( E / 10 TeV ) − 2.5 at 90% confidence level. In addition, we constrain the contribution of the ULIRG source population to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux as well as model predictions.