Can high-energy neutrino annihilation on relic neutrinos generate the observed highest energy cosmic rays?

Apr, 1998
11 pages
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Citations per year

199820022006201020140246810
Abstract: (arXiv)
Annihilation of high energy, 1021\sim 10^{21}eV, neutrinos on big bang relic neutrinos of 1\sim 1eV mass, clustered in the Galactic halo or in a nearby galaxy cluster halo, has been suggested to generate, through hadronic Z decay, high energy nucleons and photons which may account for the detected flux of >10^{20}eV cosmic-rays. We show that the flux of high energy nucleons and photons produced by this process is dominated by annihilation on the uniform, non-clustered, neutrino background, and that the energy generation rate of 10^{21}eV neutrinos required to account for the detected flux of >10^{20}eV particles is >10^{48} erg/Mpc^3 yr. This energy generation rate, comparable to the total luminosity of the universe, is 4 orders of magnitude larger than the rate of production of high energy nucleons required to account for the flux of >10^{19}eV cosmic-rays. Thus, in order for neutrino annihilation to contribute significantly to the detected flux of >10^{20}eV cosmic-rays, the existence of a new class of high-energy neutrino sources, likely unrelated to the sources of >10^{19}eV cosmic-rays, must be invoked.
Note:
  • Submitted to Astropar. Phys. (11 pages, LaTeX)
  • Submitted to Astropart.Phys.
  • cosmic radiation: energy spectrum
  • neutrino: cosmic radiation
  • neutrino antineutrino: annihilation
  • cosmological model
  • astrophysics: galaxy
  • Z0: hadronic decay
  • cosmic radiation: flux
  • neutrino: background
  • neutrino: mass
  • neutrino: density