[Paper Review] High-energy neutrinos from choked-jet supernovae: Searches and implications

Po-Wen Chang, B. Zhou+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Oct 6, 2022

Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena143 references4 citations

TL;DR

This study investigates choked-jet supernovae (cjSNe) as a potential source of IceCube's high-energy astrophysical neutrinos using a 10-year unbinned maximum-likelihood analysis of muon-track events and a catalog of SN Ib/c. Despite finding no significant correlation, conservative upper limits on cjSNe contributions to the diffuse neutrino flux remain consistent with SNe Ib/c being the dominant source, highlighting the potential of future multi-messenger observations to confirm or rule out this scenario.

ABSTRACT

The origin of the high-energy astrophysical neutrinos discovered by IceCube remains largely unknown. Multimessenger studies have indicated that the majority of these neutrinos come from gamma-ray-dark sources. Choked-jet supernovae (cjSNe), which are supernovae powered by relativistic jets stalled in stellar materials, may lead to neutrino emission via photohadronic interactions while the coproduced gamma rays are absorbed. In this paper, we perform an unbinned maximum-likelihood analysis to search for correlations between IceCube's ten-year muon-track events and our SN Ib/c sample, collected from publicly available catalogs. In addition to the conventional power-law models, we also consider the impacts of more realistic neutrino emission models for the first time, and we study the effects of the jet beaming factor in the analyses. Our results show no significant correlation. Even so, the conservative upper limits we set to the contribution of cjSNe to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux still allow SNe Ib/c to be the dominant source of astrophysical neutrinos observed by IceCube. We discuss implications to the cjSNe scenario from our results and the power of future neutrino and supernova observations.

Motivation & Objective

• To determine whether choked-jet supernovae (cjSNe) can account for the diffuse high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux detected by IceCube.
• To improve constraints on cjSNe as neutrino sources by leveraging 10 years of IceCube muon-track data, surpassing prior 1-year limits.
• To evaluate the impact of realistic, time-dependent neutrino emission models—previously untested in data—on the detectability of cjSNe.
• To assess the sensitivity of stacking and single-source analyses to the jet beaming factor and model-dependent neutrino production efficiency.
• To project the potential of future observatories like IceCube-Gen2 and LSST in testing the cjSne scenario.

Proposed method

• An unbinned maximum-likelihood analysis was applied to correlate IceCube's 10-year muon-track neutrino events with a publicly available SN Ib/c catalog.
• The analysis incorporated realistic cjSNe emission models that include time-dependent cosmic-ray and meson cooling processes, reflecting physical conditions in low-power GRB-like jets.
• Both single-source and stacking analyses were performed, with the latter used to derive upper limits on the total cosmic-ray energy budget ($\mathcal{E}_{\rm CR}$) and jet fraction ($f_{\rm jet}$) across the SN Ib/c sample.
• The jet beaming factor was explicitly modeled to assess its influence on detectability, with neutrino production efficiency varying by up to a factor of ~5 across models.
• Upper limits on the cumulative neutrino flux contributed by all SNe Ib/c were derived for each cjSNe model, using conservative statistical treatment.
• Future sensitivity projections were made based on expected improvements from IceCube-Gen2 and LSST, particularly in supernova detection rates and redshift completeness.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 Can choked-jet supernovae (cjSNe) explain the diffuse high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube?
• RQ2 How do realistic, time-dependent cjSNe emission models affect the detectability of these sources in IceCube data?
• RQ3 What are the conservative upper limits on the cosmic-ray energy budget ($\mathcal{E}_{\rm CR}$) and jet fraction ($f_{\rm jet}$) for cjSNe, given 10 years of data?
• RQ4 How sensitive are the results to variations in neutrino production efficiency across different cjSNe models?
• RQ5 To what extent can future observatories like IceCube-Gen2 and LSST improve constraints on the cjSNe scenario?

Key findings

• No significant correlation was found between IceCube’s 10-year muon-track events and the SN Ib/c sample, indicating no strong evidence for cjSNe as dominant neutrino sources in this dataset.
• The 10-year upper limits on $\mathcal{E}_{\rm CR}$ and $f_{\rm jet}$ improve upon prior 1-year limits by more than an order of magnitude, enhancing constraints on cjSNe models.
• The upper limits on the cumulative neutrino flux from SNe Ib/c remain conservative and are still consistent with SNe Ib/c being the dominant source of IceCube’s observed astrophysical neutrinos.
• Neutrino production efficiency varies by up to a factor of ~5 across the cjSNe models considered, making model-dependent efficiency a key factor in detectability and constraint strength.
• IceCube-Gen2 is projected to strengthen stacking limits by a factor of ~5 within just 2 years of operation, significantly improving the ability to test cjSNe models.
• The upcoming LSST survey is expected to increase core-collapse supernova detection rates by over an order of magnitude, dramatically improving sensitivity to low-beaming-factor cjSNe ($f_{\rm jet} \ll 0.1$), which are critical for the cjSNe hypothesis.