Some possible sources of IceCube TeV–PeV neutrino events

Abstract

The IceCube Collaboration has observed 37 neutrino events in the energy range $$30\,\mathrm{TeV}\le E_{u } \le 2$$30TeV≤Eν≤2 PeV and the sources of these neutrinos are unknown. Here we show that the positions of 12 high energy blazars and the position of the FR-I galaxy Centaurus A coincide within the error circles of ten IceCube events, the latter being in the error circle of the highest energy event so far observed by IceCube. Two of the above blazars are simultaneously within the error circles of the Telescope Array hotspot and one IceCube event. We found that the blazar H2356-309 is within the error circles of three IceCube events. We propose that photohadronic interactions of the Fermi accelerated high energy protons with the synchrotron/SSC background photons in the nuclear region of these high energy blazars and AGN are probably responsible for some of the observed IceCube events.