Cosmic neutrino production in the Milky Way

Abstract

The interaction of ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays with baryonic matter in the Milky Way produces hadrons which ultimately decay into neutrinos. This mnstitutes a backp u n d for neutrino t e l e s m p attempting to discover UHE neutrino point sources in the sky. We give an estimate of this backpund. If there exists a galactic halo of -ONC dark matter, one may be able to use the technique of registering the galactic neutrino backsound to detennine ita distribution.

The AMANDA neutrino telescope: Science prospects and performance at first light

“…This exploration has already been launched by truly pioneering observations using air Cerenkov telescopes [4]. Larger spacebased detectors and cosmic ray facilities with sensitivity above 10 7 TeV, an energy where charged protons point back at their sources with minimal deflection by the galactic magnetic field, will be pursuing similar goals. Could the high energy skies in Fig.…”

“…1 be empty? No, cosmic rays with energies exceeding 10 8 TeV have been recorded [5]. Astronomy with neutrinos does, however, have definite advantages.…”

“…GRB's are somehow associated with the annihilation of neutron stars or solar mass black holes. Characteristic fields in excess of 10 10 Gauss are concentrated in a fireball of size 10 2 kilometers, which is opaque to light. The relativistic shock (γ ≃ 10…”

“…• galactic latitude [10]; neutrinos produced by the interactions of extra-galactic cosmic rays with microwave photons for maximal redshift z = 4 and z = 2 [11].…”

Rigidity dependent knee and cosmic ray induced high energy neutrino fluxes

“…Here again the usual simplifying working hypothesis is that the CR flux consists mainly of protons, and only crude attempts have been done trying to generalise the predictions to heavier compositions [9]. Although some works have found a strong sensitivity to the assumed composition both for atmospheric and galactic CR induced neutrinos, this issue is generally not treated appropriately and hence a more thorough analysis is required in order to estimate the neutrino fluxes with some confidence for E ν > 10 14 eV.…”