Galactic TeV-PeV Neutrinos [CL]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.03156


We study the contribution of Galactic sources to the flux of astrophysical neutrinos recently observed by the IceCube Collaboration. We show that the Galactic diffuse neutrino emission consistent with $\gamma$-ray (Fermi-LAT) and cosmic ray data (KASCADE, KASCADE-Grande and CREAM) is expected to account for only 4%$-$8% of the IceCube flux above 60 TeV. Direct neutrino emission from cosmic ray-gas ($pp$) interactions in the sources would require an unusually large average opacity above 0.01. On the other hand, we find that the IceCube events already probe Galactic neutrino scenarios via the distribution of event arrival directions. We show that most Galactic scenarios can only have a limited contribution to the astrophysical signal: diffuse Galactic emission ($\lesssim50$%), quasi-diffuse emission of neutrino sources ($\lesssim65$%), extended diffuse emission from the Fermi Bubbles ($\lesssim25$%) or unidentified TeV $\gamma$-ray sources ($\lesssim25$%). Presently, dark matter decay remains unconstrained.

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M. Ahlers, Y. Bai, V. Barger, et. al.
Thu, 14 May 15
11/57

Comments: 31 pages, 13 figures, 1 table