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Pinning down the cosmic ray source mechanism with new IceCube data

Luis A. Anchordoqui1, Haim Goldberg2, Morgan H. Lynch1, Angela V. Olinto3,4, Thomas C. Paul1,2, and Thomas J. Weiler5

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
  • 3Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 4Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 5Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA

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Phys. Rev. D 89, 083003 – Published 4 April, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083003

Abstract

Very recently the IceCube Collaboration has reported an observation of 28 neutrino candidates with energies between 50 TeV and 2 PeV, constituting a 4.1σ excess compared to the atmospheric background. In this article we investigate the compatibility between the data and a hypothesized unbroken power-law neutrino spectrum for various values of spectral index Γ≥2. We show that Γ∼2.3 is consistent at the ∼1.5σ level with the observed events up to 2 PeV and to the null observation of events at higher energies. We then assume that the sources of this unbroken spectrum are Galactic, and deduce (i) an energy-transfer fraction from parent protons to pions (finding επ± and επ), and (ii) a way of discriminating among models which have been put forth to explain the “knee” and “ankle” features of the cosmic ray spectrum. Future IceCube data will test the unbroken power-law hypothesis and provide a multimessenger approach to explaining features of the cosmic ray spectrum, including the transition from Galactic to extragalactic dominance.

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Phys. Rev. D 89, 083003– Published 4 April, 2014
  • Received 28 June 2013

© 2014 American Physical Society

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