Neutrinos and Gamma Rays from Galaxy Clusters Constrained by the Upper Limits of IceCube

Abstract

Clusters of galaxies possess the capability to accelerate cosmic rays (CRs) to very high energy up to ∼1018 eV due to their large size and magnetic field strength, which favor CR confinement for cosmological times. During their confinement, they can produce neutrinos and γ-rays out of interactions with the background gas and photon fields. In recent work, Hussain et al. have conducted three-dimensional cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of the turbulent intracluster medium combined with multidimensional Monte Carlo simulations of CR propagation for redshifts ranging from z ∼ 5 to z = 0 to study the multimessenger emission from these sources. They found that when CRs with a spectral index in the range 1.5–2.5 and cutoff energy Emax=1016–1017 eV are injected into the system, they make significant contributions to the diffuse background emission of both neutrinos and γ-rays. In this work, we have revisited this model and undertaken further constraints on the parametric space. This was achieved by incorporating the recently established upper limits on neutrino emission from galaxy clusters, as obtained by the IceCube experiment. We find that for CRs injected with spectral indices in the range 2.0–2.5, cutoff energy Emax=1016–1017 eV, and power corresponding to (0.1–1)% of the cluster luminosity, our neutrino flux aligns with the upper limits estimated by IceCube. Additionally, the resulting contribution from clusters to the diffuse γ-ray background remains significant with values of the order of ∼10−5 MeV cm−2 s−1 sr−1 at energies above 500 GeV.