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Testing the Association of Supermassive Black Hole Infrared Flares and High-energy Neutrinos

Megan Wang, Christos Panagiotou, Kishalay De, Erin Kara, Megan Masterson, Foteini Oikonomou

TL;DR

This study tests whether episodic infrared-bright accretion flares from supermassive black holes can explain a portion of the IceCube high-energy neutrino flux. It builds a nearby mid-IR flare sample from NEOWISE and cross-matches it with the IceCat-1 neutrino catalog, applying spatial and temporal coincidence windows. The analysis yields zero complete coincidences, with only one spatial match that is temporally inconsistent, challenging prior claims of a broad IR-flare–neutrino connection. The results imply that the general population of mid-IR accretion flares with dust echoes is unlikely to account for a large fraction of IceCube neutrinos, though a rare subclass may still contribute; future surveys with larger samples are needed to tightly constrain any such association.

Abstract

The physical origin of the observed cosmic neutrinos remains an open question and the subject of active research. While matter accretion onto supermassive black holes is long thought to accelerate particles to high energies, it has recently been suggested that tidal disruption events, and accretion flares in general, with prominent IR echoes can account for a fraction of the diffuse high-energy neutrino signal. Motivated by this result, we compile a sample of nearby accretion flares detected in the NEOWISE survey featuring strong IR echoes, and we cross-match it with the latest catalog of neutrino alerts, IceCat-1. We recover only a single spatial coincidence between the two catalogs, consistent with a chance coincidence. We find no temporal and spatial coincidences between the two samples, which, given the properties of our sample, appears to challenge previous conclusions. We discuss the physical implications of our results and potential future explorations.

Testing the Association of Supermassive Black Hole Infrared Flares and High-energy Neutrinos

TL;DR

This study tests whether episodic infrared-bright accretion flares from supermassive black holes can explain a portion of the IceCube high-energy neutrino flux. It builds a nearby mid-IR flare sample from NEOWISE and cross-matches it with the IceCat-1 neutrino catalog, applying spatial and temporal coincidence windows. The analysis yields zero complete coincidences, with only one spatial match that is temporally inconsistent, challenging prior claims of a broad IR-flare–neutrino connection. The results imply that the general population of mid-IR accretion flares with dust echoes is unlikely to account for a large fraction of IceCube neutrinos, though a rare subclass may still contribute; future surveys with larger samples are needed to tightly constrain any such association.

Abstract

The physical origin of the observed cosmic neutrinos remains an open question and the subject of active research. While matter accretion onto supermassive black holes is long thought to accelerate particles to high energies, it has recently been suggested that tidal disruption events, and accretion flares in general, with prominent IR echoes can account for a fraction of the diffuse high-energy neutrino signal. Motivated by this result, we compile a sample of nearby accretion flares detected in the NEOWISE survey featuring strong IR echoes, and we cross-match it with the latest catalog of neutrino alerts, IceCat-1. We recover only a single spatial coincidence between the two catalogs, consistent with a chance coincidence. We find no temporal and spatial coincidences between the two samples, which, given the properties of our sample, appears to challenge previous conclusions. We discuss the physical implications of our results and potential future explorations.
Paper Structure (6 sections, 3 figures)

This paper contains 6 sections, 3 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Data
  3. WISE Accretion Flare Selection
  4. IceCube Neutrino Alerts
  5. Results
  6. Conclusions

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: The NEOWISE W1 (3.4$\mu m$) and W2 (4.6$\mu m$) aperture photometry light curve of the accretion flare WTP14aczncp, which was found to be spatially coincident with the neutrino event IC140721A. The arrival window for the employed temporal coincidence criterion is highlighted with yellow, and the neutrino arrival time is marked with a blue dashed line. Open black diamonds and filled red circles represent the W1 and W2 waveband flux respectively.
  • Figure 2: An all-sky map in equatorial coordinates of the considered IceCat-1 neutrino events, with signalness above 0.5 and 90% angular uncertainty contours below 50$^\circ$as reported by Abbasi2023, and our final sample of 99 mid-IR accretion flares.
  • Figure 3: Distribution of the IR flux of the mid-IR accretion flares identified in our analysis (magenta) and of the optical accretion flares (gray curve) considered by vanVelzen2024.The vertical orange dotted lines and green dashed lines denote the flux of the TDE candidates reported to coincide with a neutrino even by vanVelzen2024 and Jiang2023 respectively.