Publication Date:
2018-07-13
Description:
Previous detections of individual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 tera–electron volts. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known -ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multiwavelength campaign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to -rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy -rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a -ray–emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrinos.
Keywords:
Astronomy, Online Only, Physics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Geosciences
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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