Correlation Between X-Ray and Cosmic Neutrino Sources: From Obscured AGN to Blazars

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kun, Emma, Bartos, Imre, Ricci, Claudio, del Palacio, Santiago, Halzen, Francis, Tjus, Julia Becker, Biermann, Peter L., Franckowiak, Anna
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Kun, Emma
Bartos, Imre
Ricci, Claudio
del Palacio, Santiago
Halzen, Francis
Tjus, Julia Becker
Biermann, Peter L.
Franckowiak, Anna
author_facet Kun, Emma
Bartos, Imre
Ricci, Claudio
del Palacio, Santiago
Halzen, Francis
Tjus, Julia Becker
Biermann, Peter L.
Franckowiak, Anna
contents The origin of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos remains a key open question in multimessenger astrophysics. A correlation between unabsorbed hard X-ray emission and high-energy neutrino luminosity has been reported in a sample of six active galactic nuclei with the highest individual IceCube significances, linking neutrino production to compact, photon-rich environments near supermassive black holes. In this work we study whether the threshold-near IceCube excesses associated with seven NuSTAR-observed blazars are statistically consistent with that established relation. Calibrating the relation between the neutrino and hard X-ray luminosities as $\log L_ν= α+ β\log L_\mathrm{hX} + \mathcal{N}(0, σ_{\rm int}^2)$ on the six published sources via a Bayesian regression with errors on both axes, the recovered slope is consistent with $β= 1$, and the intrinsic scatter is $\sim 0.6$\,dex. All seven new blazars are posterior-predictively consistent with this calibration ($χ^2_7 = 1.58$, $p = 0.98$) under the working hypothesis that the published IceCube best-fit neutrino numbers $\hat{n}_s$ values reflect the signal. A null-injection test confirms that, given the present calibration sample size, the consistency test does not by itself adjudicate between signal and selected-background origins. A distance-free $L_\mathrm{hX}/L_ν$ ratio diagnostic places both populations within the photohadronic prediction band, statistically indistinguishable. A flux-space permutation test on the 13-source joint sample, with construction-controlled $d_L^{\,2}$ distance bias, rejects random pairing $L_\mathrm{hX}$--$L_ν$ with $p = 6.3 \times 10^{-4}$ ($3.23\,σ$). We interpret these results as a conditional consistency check; a detection-level statement requires either an enlarged calibration set or an X-ray-weighted IceCube stacking likelihood with internal data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_15360
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Correlation Between X-Ray and Cosmic Neutrino Sources: From Obscured AGN to Blazars
Kun, Emma
Bartos, Imre
Ricci, Claudio
del Palacio, Santiago
Halzen, Francis
Tjus, Julia Becker
Biermann, Peter L.
Franckowiak, Anna
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
The origin of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos remains a key open question in multimessenger astrophysics. A correlation between unabsorbed hard X-ray emission and high-energy neutrino luminosity has been reported in a sample of six active galactic nuclei with the highest individual IceCube significances, linking neutrino production to compact, photon-rich environments near supermassive black holes. In this work we study whether the threshold-near IceCube excesses associated with seven NuSTAR-observed blazars are statistically consistent with that established relation. Calibrating the relation between the neutrino and hard X-ray luminosities as $\log L_ν= α+ β\log L_\mathrm{hX} + \mathcal{N}(0, σ_{\rm int}^2)$ on the six published sources via a Bayesian regression with errors on both axes, the recovered slope is consistent with $β= 1$, and the intrinsic scatter is $\sim 0.6$\,dex. All seven new blazars are posterior-predictively consistent with this calibration ($χ^2_7 = 1.58$, $p = 0.98$) under the working hypothesis that the published IceCube best-fit neutrino numbers $\hat{n}_s$ values reflect the signal. A null-injection test confirms that, given the present calibration sample size, the consistency test does not by itself adjudicate between signal and selected-background origins. A distance-free $L_\mathrm{hX}/L_ν$ ratio diagnostic places both populations within the photohadronic prediction band, statistically indistinguishable. A flux-space permutation test on the 13-source joint sample, with construction-controlled $d_L^{\,2}$ distance bias, rejects random pairing $L_\mathrm{hX}$--$L_ν$ with $p = 6.3 \times 10^{-4}$ ($3.23\,σ$). We interpret these results as a conditional consistency check; a detection-level statement requires either an enlarged calibration set or an X-ray-weighted IceCube stacking likelihood with internal data.
title Correlation Between X-Ray and Cosmic Neutrino Sources: From Obscured AGN to Blazars
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.15360