Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2022

Publication Title

Astrophysical Journal

Volume

926

Issue

1

Abstract

Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities L IR ≥ 1012 L ⊙, making them the most luminous objects in the infrared sky. These dusty objects are generally powered by starbursts with star formation rates that exceed 100 M ⊙ yr-1, possibly combined with a contribution from an active galactic nucleus. Such environments make ULIRGs plausible sources of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos, which can be observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. We present a stacking search for high-energy neutrinos from a representative sample of 75 ULIRGs with redshift z ≤ 0.13 using 7.5 yr of IceCube data. The results are consistent with a background-only observation, yielding upper limits on the neutrino flux from these 75 ULIRGs. For an unbroken E -2.5 power-law spectrum, we report an upper limit on the stacked flux φνμ+ν¯μ90%=3.24×10-14TeV-1cm-2s-1(E/10TeV)-2.5 at 90% confidence level. In addition, we constrain the contribution of the ULIRG source population to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux as well as model predictions.

Identifier

85125859942 (Scopus)

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