High-energy neutrinos from sources in clusters of galaxies

Ke Fang, Angela V. Olinto

Published 2016-07-01Version 1

High-energy cosmic rays can be accelerated in clusters of galaxies, by mega-parsec scale shocks induced by accretion of gas during the formation of large-scale structure, or by powerful sources harbored in clusters. Once accelerated, the highest energy particles leave the cluster via almost rectilinear trajectories, while lower energy ones can be confined by the cluster magnetic field up to cosmological time and interact with the intracluster gas. Using a realistic model of the baryon distribution and the turbulent magnetic field in clusters, we studied the propagation and hadronic interaction of high-energy protons in the intracluster medium. We report the cumulative cosmic ray and neutrino spectra generated by galaxy clusters including embedded sources, and demonstrate that clusters can contribute a significant fraction of the observed IceCube neutrinos above 30 TeV while remaining undetected in high-energy cosmic rays and $\gamma$ rays for reasonable choices of parameters and source scenarios.