UA astrophysicists in international collaboration identify Blazar as source of high-energy neutrinos
UA Professors Help in Discovery of Potential Cosmic Ray Source
University of Alabama Physics and Astronomy Professors Dawn Williams (IceCube collaboration), Marcos Santander (IceCube & VERITAS collaboration) and William Keel (Kapteyn telescope, SARA observatory) are part of an international collaboration that identified a blazar as the source of high-energy neutrinos. A blazar is a super-massive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy whose high-energy jet is directed very nearly towards the Earth. This is the first time a neutrino arriving at Earth from outside our solar system has been traced back to a recurrent source. Neutrinos arriving at the Earth are observed from nuclear reactions inside the Sun and were observed from the nearest supernova in modern times in 1987. The IceCube detector has observed several other neutrinos from outside our solar system over the last several years, but this is the first time a neutrino detected by IceCube was tracked back to its source. This neutrino was produced in a jet from a super-massive black hole, making it immediately fundamental to understanding how such jets create high-energy particles.
There was an NSF press conference on July 12 2018 announcing this discovery.
The two key science papers released (of many more to come) can be found here:
- Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A, Science Magazine 2018
- Neutrino emission from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 prior to the IceCube-170922A alert, Science Magazine 2018
Here are some news articles written more for the general public:
- The Verge: Astronomers trace the source of a high-energy particle that slammed into Earth
- Forbes: A Cosmic First: Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos Found, From Blazing Galaxies Across The Universe
- Popular Science: We may finally know where the ‘ghost particles’ that surround us come from
- USA Today: Ghost particles from outer space: Scientists discover distant source of neutrinos
- CNN: ‘Ghost particle’ found in Antarctica provides astronomy breakthrough