Particle theory

Abstract:

We analyzed the 7.92 × 1011 cosmic-ray-induced muon events collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory from 2011 May 13, when the fully constructed experiment started to take data, to 2023 May 12. This data set provides an up-to-date cosmic-ray arrival direction distribution in the Southern Hemisphere with unprecedented statistical accuracy covering more than a full period length of a solar cycle. Improvements in Monte Carlo event simulation and better handling of year-to-year differences in data processing significantly reduce systematic uncertainties below the level of statistical fluctuations compared to the previously published results. We confirm the observation of a change in the angular structure of the cosmic-ray anisotropy between 10 TeV and 1 PeV, more specifically in the 100–300 TeV energy range. For the first time, we analyzed the angular power spectrum at different energies. The observed variations of the power spectra with energy suggest relatively reduced large-scale features at high energy compared to those of medium and small scales. The large volume of data enhances the statistical significance at higher energies, up to the PeV scale, and smaller angular scales, down to approximately 6° compared to previous findings.

Abstract:

We study the dynamics and interactions of the solitonic domain walls that occur in realistic axion electrodynamics models including the Chern-Simons interaction, aϵμνλσFμνFλσ, between an axion a(x) of mass ma, and a massless U(1) gauge field, e.g. EM, interacting with strength α = e2/4π with charged matter, e.g. electron-positron pairs. In particular, in the presence of a U(1) gauge-and-matter relativistic thermal plasma we study the friction experienced by the walls due to the Chern-Simons term. Utilizing the linear response method we include the collective effects of the plasma, as opposed to purely particle scattering across the wall (as is done in previous treatments) which is valid only in the thin wall regime that is rarely applicable in realistic cases. We show that the friction depends on the Lorentz-γ-factor-dependent inverse thickness of the wall in the plasma frame, ℓ−1 ~ γma, compared to the three different plasma scales, the temperature T, the Debye mass mD ~ αT, and the damping rate Γ ~ α2T, and elucidate the underlying physical intuition for this behavior. (For friction in the thin-wall-limit we correct previous expressions in the literature.) We further consider the effects of long-range coherent magnetic fields that are possibly present in the early universe and compare their effect with that of thermal magnetic fields. We comment on the changes to our results that likely apply in the thermal deconfined phase of a non-Abelian gauge theory. Finally, we briefly discuss the possible early universe consequences of our results for domain wall motion and network decay, stochastic gravitational wave production from domain wall networks, and possible primordial black hole production from domain wall collapse, though a more complete discussion of these topics is reserved for a companion paper.

Abstract:

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising candidate sources of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, since they provide environments rich in matter and photon targets where cosmic-ray interactions may lead to the production of gamma rays and neutrinos. We searched for high-energy neutrino emission from AGN using the Swift-BAT Spectroscopic Survey catalog of hard X-ray sources and 12 yr of IceCube muon track data. First, upon performing a stacked search, no significant emission was found. Second, we searched for neutrinos from a list of 43 candidate sources and found an excess from the direction of two sources, the Seyfert galaxies NGC 1068 and NGC 4151. We observed NGC 1068 at flux ϕνμ+ν¯μ = 4.02−1.52+1.58×10−11 TeV−1 cm−2 s−1 normalized at 1 TeV, with a power-law spectral index γ = 3.10 −0.22+0.26 , consistent with previous IceCube results. The observation of a neutrino excess from the direction of NGC 4151 is at a posttrial significance of 2.9σ. If interpreted as an astrophysical signal, the excess observed from NGC 4151 corresponds to a flux ϕνμ+ν¯μ = 1.51−0.81+0.99×10−11 TeV−1 cm−2 s−1 normalized at 1 TeV and γ = 2.83 −0.28+0.35 .