Outside, in space, there is a class of objects called blazars. Think of them as extreme particle accelerators, capable of gathering energies a million times stronger than the Great Hadron Collider of Switzerland. It turns out that they are to blame for one of the great astrophysical mysteries: what creates and propels neutrinos through the universe at incredibly fast speeds? Turns out the answer has been there all along: the blazers are pumping neutrinos and cosmic rays. This is the conclusion reached by a group of astronomers led by Dr. Sara Buson of the University of Wurzburg in Germany while studying data from a very unique facility here on Earth: the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.
Understand the origins of speed demon particles
Neutrinos are strange little ducks in the astrophysics zoo. They come from cosmic ray interactions in blazers and have very little mass. Neutrinos do not interact with matter as they pass through the cosmos, meaning they travel through galaxies and planets. They even exploit you while you’re sitting here and you read this, and leave very little evidence of their passing. Fortunately, this last feature means that they can be traced back to their sources, as electromagnetic forces do not even bother them.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. He detected neutrinos and helped astronomers track them down to blazers. Credit: Emanuel Jacobi / NSF.
So how did Buson and his team find the places where neutrinos are born? They headed to IceCube, which is buried deep in the ice of the South Pole. It is the most sensitive neutrino detector on the planet. Look for these almost massless subatomic particles, which astronomers also like to call astrophysical messengers. This is because they carry information about violent astrophysical events and sources, such as black holes, neutron stars, and blazers.
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In 2017, IceCube detected a neutrino from the TXS 0506 + 056 blaze. It is the active core of a distant galaxy that is brighter than its entire galaxy. The data carried by the neutrino told the team that it had come out of the heart of that blaze and had traveled through 5.7 billion light years to be measured by IceCube. Not only does it send neutrinos, but it is also a source of bright radio and pumps light across the electromagnetic spectrum. (For star observers among us, this blazer is in the direction of the left shoulder of the constellation Orion.)
Abundant blazars
Of course, TXS 0506 + 056 is not the only source of neutrinos (apart from the Sun, for example). IceCube found 19 “hot spots” in the southern sky. At least ten of them are most likely blazers. “The results provide, for the first time, incontrovertible observational evidence that the PeVatron blazer subsample is a source of extragalactic neutrinos and therefore cosmic ray accelerators,” Buson said in a press release.
PeVatron blazers accelerate particles at least to PeV energies. PeV is the abbreviation for “peta electron volt” and is 1015 electron-volts. To give you an idea of how powerful it is, the Large Hadron Collider achieved just over 1 PeV in 2015.
Neutrinos and multi-messenger astronomy
These almost massless cosmic rays and high-speed neutrinos are the last “messengers” of the distant universe. For a long time, astronomers used light to study the universe. But, he is not the only messenger who can teach us about stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, and other objects in the cosmic zoo. Neutrinos, cosmic rays, and gravitational waves provide other modes of message that carry valuable information about distant astrophysical events and objects.
According to team member Marco Ajello of Clemson University, multi-messaging astronomy immeasurably adds to our understanding of the universe. “It’s like feeling, hearing and seeing at the same time. You will understand each other much better, “he said.” The same goes for astrophysics because the view you have of multiple detections from different messengers is much more detailed than you can get from light alone. “
The data provided by neutrinos and other messengers from the distant universe point the way to a better understanding of objects such as the blazers that create them. Team members will now focus on why and how blazars accelerate particles like neutrinos. Obviously, they are extremely energetic objects in their own right. Blazar TXS 0506 + 056 is a typical active galactic core powered by a supermassive black hole. It has a relativistic jet that points us directly here on Earth, but luckily, we are too far away to be harmed. Instead, we can observe how it generates neutrinos. It is, in fact, the first known source of astrophysical neutrinos, and a very early provider of multi-messenger astronomy. Astrophysicists now have a whole new set of objects that act as probes for the distant universe.
For more information
Astrophysicists show that neutrinos come from blazars. Beginning a journey through the universe: the discovery of extragalactic neutrino factories
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