EeV neutrinos associated with UHECR sources

Abstract

Electromagnetic energy losses of charged pions and muons suppress the expected high energy, 10 18 eV, neutrino emission from sources of ultrahigh energy, 10 19 eV, cosmic-rays. We show here that 10 19 eV photons produced in such sources by neutral pion decay may escape the sources, thanks to the Klein-Nishina suppression of the pair production cross section, and produce µ ± pairs in interactions with the cosmic microwave background. The flux of muon decay neutrinos, which are expected to be associated in time and direction with the electromagnetic emission from the sources, may reach a few percent of the Waxman-Bahcall bound. Their detection may allow one to directly identify the sources of 10 19 eV cosmic-rays, and will provide the most stringent constraints on quantum-gravity-induced Lorentz violation.

Intergalactic γ-ray propagation: basic ideas, processes, and constraints

“…For 1/(1 + z) EeV < E < 50/(1 + z) EeV PIP is subdominant; at higher energies it is the main proton energy loss process, occuring mainly on the CMB (see [5] and references therein); 4) adiabatic losses (AL). For especially high values of center-of-mass energy, additional processes also set in, such as muon pair production γγ → µ + µ − [6] and double pair production γγ → e + e − e + e − [7] for γ-rays. Additionally, there is a quest for New Physics processes, such as γ-axion-like particle (ALP) mixing [8]- [11] or Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) [13]- [15].…”

Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes

“…See also[106], where the decay of muons produced in the interactions of π 0 photons with the CMB photons leads to a flux of comparable size.…”