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Evidence for Neutrino Emission from X-Ray-bright Active Galactic Nuclei with IceCube
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Evidence for Neutrino Emission from X-Ray-bright Active Galactic Nuclei with IceCube

R Abbasi, M Ackermann, J Adams, S. K Agarwalla, J. A Aguilar, M Ahlers, J. M Alameddine, S Ali, N. M Amin, K Andeen, …
Astrophysical journal. Letters, v 1000(1), L26
20 Mar 2026
url
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae4aadView
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei Emission Emitters Energy spectra Galaxies Gamma rays Luminosity Neutrinos Northern sky Seyfert galaxies X-ray astronomy X-rays
Recently, IceCube reported neutrino emission from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068. Using 13.1 yr of IceCube data, we present a follow-up search for neutrino sources in the northern sky. NGC 1068 remains the most significant neutrino source among 110 preselected gamma-ray emitters while also being spatially compatible with the most significant location in the northern sky. Its energy spectrum is characterized by an unbroken power-law with spectral index γ = 3.4 ± 0.2. Consistent with previous results, the observed neutrino flux exceeds its gamma-ray counterpart by at least 2 orders of magnitude. Motivated by this disparity and the high X-ray luminosity of the source, we selected 47 X-ray-bright Seyfert galaxies from the Swift/BAT spectroscopic survey that were not included in the list of gamma-ray emitters. When testing this collection for neutrino emission, we observe a 3.3σ excess from an ensemble of 11 sources, with NGC 1068 excluded from the sample. Our results strengthen the evidence that X-ray-bright cores of active galactic nuclei are neutrino emitters.

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