The neutrino filter: connecting blazars with ultra high energy cosmic rays and astrophysical neutrinos

Abstract

We discuss the link between high energy $\gamma$-ray emitting blazars, very high energy neutrinos, and ultra high energy cosmic rays using the IceCube neutrinos as a filter to $\gamma$-ray catalogues. The neutrino filtered emitters are investigated through a correlation analysis based on a likelihood method with the ultra high energy cosmic rays from the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array by scanning in flux and angular separation between sources and cosmic rays. Based on the presently published neutrino and cosmic ray catalogues, a 2.9 sigma excess of cosmic rays correlating with the neutrino filtered emitters is observed. The neutrino filtered $\gamma$-ray sources that make up the cosmic rays excess are blazars of the high synchrotron peak type. More statistics is needed to further investigate these sources as candidate cosmic ray and neutrino emitters. We report on the status of our investigation focused on blazars as candidate cosmic ray and neutrino emitters.