All-sky search for correlations in the arrival directions of astrophysical neutrino candidates and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays

Journal article

High-energy neutrinos, being neutral and weakly interacting particles, are powerful probes of the sites of production and acceleration of cosmic rays. The challenging discovery of cosmic neutrinos by the IceCube Collaboration has moved the field closer to realizing the potential of neutrino astronomy. Meanwhile, ground-based cosmic ray detectors like the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array have reached an unprecedented accuracy in the determination of the features of the cosmic rays at the highest energies. We report on a collaborative effort between IceCube, the Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array to identify directional correlations between the arrival directions of the highest-energy cosmic rays from both hemispheres and of the most probable cosmic neutrino events detected by IceCube. We describe the updated results of two independent searches using seven years of IceCube neutrino data and the most energetic cosmicray events detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. The directional correlation found between UHECRs and neutrinos is reported with a significance of ~ 2σ.

Authors: IceCube Collaboration; Pierre Auger Collaboration; Telescope Array Collaboration; Sarkar, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Proceedings of Science
• Journal: 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2017)
• Publication date: 2017-08-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-05-26
• Keywords: astro-ph.IM; astro-ph.HE; astro-ph.CO