TeV neutrinos and gamma-rays from pulsars

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that pulsars could be strong sources of TeV muon neutrinos provided positive ions are accelerated by pulsar polar caps to PeV energies. In such a situation, muon neutrinos are produced through the Δ-resonance in interactions of pulsar-accelerated ions with its thermal radiation field. High-energy gamma-rays should also be produced simultaneously in pulsar environment as both charged and neutral pions are generated in the interactions of energetic hadrons with the ambient photon fields. Here, we estimate TeV gamma-ray flux at the Earth from a few nearby young pulsars. When compared with the observations, we find that proper consideration of the effect of polar cap geometry in flux calculation is important. Incorporating such an effect, we obtain the (revised) event rates at the Earth due to a few potential nearby pulsars. The results suggest that pulsars are unlikely to be detected by the upcoming neutrino telescopes. We also estimate TeV gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes from pulsar nebulae for the adopted model of particle acceleration. © 2009 RAS.