A high-energy neutrino event detected by IceCube on 22 September 2017 was coincident in direction and time with a gamma-ray flare from the blazar TXS 0506+056. Prompted by this association, we investigated 9.5 years of IceCube neutrino observations to search for excess emission at the position of the blazar. We found an excess of high-energy neutrino events, with respect to atmospheric backgrounds, at that position between September 2014 and March 2015. Allowing for time-variable flux, this constitutes 3.5s evidence for neutrino emission from the direction of TXS 0506+056, independent of and prior to the 2017 flaring episode. This suggests that blazars are identifiable sources of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux.
CITATION STYLE
Aartsen, M. G., Ackermann, M., Adams, J., Aguilar, J. A., Ahlers, M., Ahrens, M., … Yuan, T. (2018). Neutrino emission from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 prior to the IceCube-170922A alert. Science, 361(6398), 147–151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2890
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