Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A
Journal
Science 361, eaat1378, July 2018 (Submitted 2018/03/01)
External url: https://www.doi.org/10.1126/science.aat1378
Abstract:
Previous detections of individual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 tera─electron volts. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known γ-ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multiwavelength campaign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to γ-rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy γ-rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a γ-ray─emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrinos.