Searching for the high-energy neutrino counterpart signals: The case of the Fermi bubbles signal and of dark matter annihilation in the inner Galaxy

Abstract

The recent uncovering of the Fermi bubbles/haze in the Fermi -ray data has generated theoretical work to explain such a signal of hard rays in combination with the WMAP haze signal. Many of these theoretical models can have distinctively different implications with regards to the production of highenergy neutrinos. We discuss the neutrino signals from different models proposed for the explanation of the Fermi bubbles/haze, more explicitly, from dark matter annihilation in the galactic halo with conditions of preferential cosmic ray diffusion, from recent active galactic nucleus jet activity, from periodic diffusive shock acceleration, from stochastic second order Fermi acceleration and from long time-scale star formation in the galactic center in combination with strong galactic winds. We find that some of these models will be probed by the IceCube DeepCore detector. Moreover, with a km 3 telescope located in the Northern Hemisphere, we will be able to discriminate between the hadronic, leptonic and the dark matter models. Additionally using the reconstructed neutrino spectra we will probe annihilation of TeV scale dark matter towards the galactic center.

The Galactic Center GeV excess from a series of leptonic cosmic-ray outbursts

“…Alternatively, hadronic models for the Fermi Bubbles have been proposed [55], associated with long time scale (∼Gyr) star formation in the GC, transferred away from the Galactic Plane by strong winds. Notably, this class of models predicts a large neutrino counterpart signal that could be probed by current and future neutrino telescopes [56,57], and that may already be in some tension with high energy (O(30 -1000) TeV) neutrino flux measurements [58].…”

Neutrino events at IceCube and the Fermi bubbles

“…Their origin, and the production mechanism of gamma rays, are yet unknown. Leaving aside possible new physics [24][25][26][27][28], concentrated high rate of supernova activity near the GC [29,30] or accretion of gas by the GC black hole at a high rate in recent past [23] are the two main scenarios for bubble formation. The observed gamma rays are created either due to Compton scattering by highly relativistic electrons or due to decays of neutral pions created by interactions of energetic baryons.…”

“…1. It appears that N s ¼ 4 events (events number 2, 12, 14, 15) have their central position value inside the bubbles ("strongly correlated," meaning higher likelihood of originating from the FB), and N w ¼ 4 (number 17,22,24,25) are compatible with the bubbles within the error ("weakly correlated," or lower likelihood). Therefore N ¼ 8 is a conservative upper limit for the number of events from the FB, to be compared with theoretical predictions.…”

A search for neutrino emission from the Fermi bubbles with the ANTARES telescope

“…The sensi-tivity will improve as more data is accumulated (more than 65 % gain in the sensitivity is expected once 2012-2016 data is added to the analysis). The next generation KM3NeT neutrino telescope will provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity [28][29][30].…”