# High Energy Cosmic Rays from Neutrinos

## Abstract

We address a class of models in which neutrinos, having a small mass, originate the highest energy cosmic rays interacting with the relic cosmic neutrino background. Assuming lepton number symmetry and an enhanced neutrino density in arbitrary size clusters (halos), we make an analytical calculation of the required neutrino fluxes. We show that the parameter space for these models is heavily constrained by horizontal air shower searches. Marginal room is left for models with exceptionally flat neutrino spectral indices, neutrino masses in the $`0.1`$eV range and supercluster scale halos of order 50 Mpc size. Our constraints do not apply to models with lepton number asymmetry.

The detection of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cut off  has stirred the research activity in cosmic acceleration mechanisms. Above the GZK cutoff protons rapidly loose energy through photoproduction in the cosmic microwave background and therefore sources must be relatively nearby . The known objects in our “extragalactic neighborhood”, within few tens of Megaparsecs, have difficulties to accommodate stochastic acceleration mechanisms (most commonly invoked) due to dimensional arguments. Moreover such UHECR deviate little in the magnetic fields encountered over this length scale and no obvious astrophysical candidates are seen in the arrival direction of the few detected events. Several possibilities have been considered to explain these events  and in particular that cosmic ray production arises through ultra high energy (UHE) neutrino interactions with the cosmic neutrino background .

UHE neutrinos could come from cosmic distances and interact with the relic neutrinos in our halo. The final stable products of these interactions would be gamma rays and protons (besides secondary neutrinos) which would constitute the high energy end (above $`10^{19}`$eV) of the cosmic ray spectrum. The idea is attractive because it avoids the constraint that source candidates must be at distances below $`50`$Mpc, but it requires large fluxes of very high energy neutrinos (above $`10^{21}`$eV)  without getting into the details concerning the UHE neutrino production mechanism. Models involving annihilation of topological defects  and heavy relic decays  could for instance produce these neutrinos rather naturally. Bounds for some of these models have already been discussed in the literature based on neutrino and photon flux measurements .

Only the resonance peak in the $`Z^0`$ production interactions with the cosmic neutrino background can provide any significant secondary particle flux. In the massless neutrino case an energy $`E_\nu ^{res}10^{16}`$ GeV is required to produce $`Z^0`$’s at resonance since relic neutrinos have energies $`2`$ K $`1.710^4`$ eV. This possibility would imply either neutrino fluxes exceeding current limits from Horizontal Air Showers, as will be shown below, or unnaturally fine tuned neutrino energy spectra. If neutrinos are massive, a possibility that is becoming increasingly more realistic in the light of recent results by Superkamiokande , the necessary neutrino beam energy to produce $`Z^0`$’s at resonance in the interactions with the relic neutrinos becomes inversely proportional to the neutrino mass. Moreover background neutrinos would tend to accumulate in an extended halo as pointed out in Ref.  increasing their local density with respect to the cosmological value and the probability of nearby interactions.

The idea has already been discussed by several authors. Using an incoming neutrino flux of spectral index 2, Waxman has discussed the models from general energy density arguments, using limits on local neutrino density because of Pauli exclusion, to conclude that a new class of models would have to be invoked to accelerate the neutrinos themselves and that the energy required is comparable to the total photon luminosity of the Universe . The calculation depends on the spectral index and the energy cutoffs of the assumed neutrino spectrum. Yoshida et al. have recently computed the particle spectra for several case studies after detailed propagation of all secondary products in the extragalactic magnetic fields and through the cosmic microwave background, and assuming clustering in supergalactic scales. These cases support the possibility that the produced UHECR, neutrinos and gamma rays are compatible with neutrino observations and bounds .

In this paper we further discuss this idea analyzing the model dependence on the assumed neutrino spectral index. We establish the neutrino fluxes firstly using energetic considerations similar to those of Ref. and then analytically calculating the proton and photon secondary spectra. If large fluxes of high energy neutrinos exist, they should have been detected. Indeed by imposing that the neutrinos produce the observed UHECR one expects a much larger flux of neutrinos as pointed out in Ref., since the probability for interacting in the neutrino halo is small. In a phenomenological approach we leave the neutrino spectral index and the local neutrino density enhancement in the halo as free parameters. We will show that for a large region in the two dimensional parameter space, the required neutrino flux is heavily constrained by existing data on horizontal showers.

Assuming neutrinos are massive (of order 1 eV) we consider a neutrino of energy $`E_\nu `$. This neutrino could interact with an antineutrino from the cosmic background, with a center of mass squared energy $`s=2m_\nu E_\nu `$. The cross section for this process is maximal near the $`Z^0`$ resonance, of width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z`$, which occurs for neutrino energies of $`E_\nu \mathrm{4\hspace{0.33em}10}^{12}(1\text{eV}/m_\nu )`$ GeV. In hadronic decays the $`Z^0`$ produces high energy particles, mostly pions, which further decay so that only high energy photons and protons (and neutrinos) would eventually reach the Earth. The final particle spectra are given by a convolution of the quark fragmentation functions and the in flight decays of all the intermediate particles. These spectra have to be propagated in the photon cosmic background, IR background, galactic fields, etc. which would alter the arrival fluxes of high energy photons and protons. As shown by Yoshida et al. , the final particle spectra agree well with observations and can explain the UHECR spectrum for a wide range of spectral indices, $`\gamma 2`$, assumed in the original neutrino flux.

The survival probability of a UHE neutrino in the relic neutrino background is in general given by $`𝒫_𝒮(E_\nu )=e^{\tau _\nu }`$, with $`\tau _\nu `$ being the opacity. Considering only the resonant $`Z^0`$ production cross section $`\sigma _{\nu \overline{\nu }}`$  in a matter dominated Universe the opacity can be well approximated by the redshift integral:

$$\tau _\nu \left(E_{\nu 0}\right)\frac{c}{H_0}n_{\overline{\nu }0}_0^{z_{max}}\frac{dz(1+z)^2\sigma _{\nu \overline{\nu }}\left[2m_{\overline{\nu }}E_{\nu 0}(1+z)\right]}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_{M0}(1+z)^3+\left[1\mathrm{\Omega }_{M0}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}\right](1+z)^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}}}$$
(1)   
Here $`H`$ is the Hubble constant, $`E_\nu `$ is the interacting neutrino energy and the subscript $`0`$ is used to indicate the present value of a redshift varying quantity. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are respectively the matter density and the cosmological constant terms in the Friedmann equation expressed in dimensionless units. The energy integral over the relic neutrino spectral density has been eliminated in the assumption the neutrinos are non relativistic so that $`n_{\overline{\nu }}`$ is the relic antineutrino number density and the argument of the interaction cross section is the redshift varying center of mass energy of the collision.

If one integrates this expression to galaxy formation era $`z_{max}5`$ assuming no clustering of the relic neutrinos, the uncertainty in the numerical value of the opacity is mainly dominated by the lack of precise knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{M0}`$ and $`H_0`$. For incoming neutrinos having the appropriate energy to interact resonantly, the opacity obtained ranges from $`0.05`$ to $`0.3`$ for cosmological scenarios with $`0.1<\mathrm{\Omega }_{M0}<1`$ and cosmological constant parameter in the range $`0<\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}<0.7`$ . Although models in which the UHECR are produced by UHE neutrinos can require energy densities comparable to the luminosity of the Universe , they would not necessarily have strong observable effects provided the opacity is low. If the opacities were larger, as one could expect for a mechanism generating the neutrinos at higher redshifts, there could be other observable consequences such as low energy photons above current experimental limits. Whatever the origin of the interacting neutrinos, if one requires a neutrino flux well exceeding that of other particles such as electrons, photons, protons and neutrons, models can be found which are consistent with the low energy photon flux bound as shown by the examples in Ref. .

In order to explain the UHECR spectrum nearby the Earth the production rate within the absorption distance of the cosmic rays in the CMB ($`50`$ Mpc) is fixed by data. If the local relic neutrino density is known this normalizes the neutrino flux. We leave a local density enhancement factor, $`10^\xi `$, to account for possible clustering effects and assume a halo radius $`D`$, otherwise the probability of interaction for a neutrino is very small and the neutrino flux needed to produce the cosmic rays must be enormous and in conflict with both energy considerations and experimental neutrino bounds. The survival probability for the incoming neutrino flux is given by a local opacity factor $`\tau _{D\nu }`$ integrating Eq.( 1) to the halo limit taken to be $`D`$. This probability has a large resonance peak at $`E_\nu ^{res}=M_Z^2/(2m_\nu )`$ of width $`\delta E_\nu =E_\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }_Z/M_Z`$ where $`M_Z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z`$ are the $`Z`$ mass and width respectively. As long as $`D`$ is below 50 Mpc the upper $`z`$ limit is small $`z<0.01`$ and the opacity at the resonant energy can be well approximated by the (”static”) expression:

$$\tau _{D\nu }\left(E_{\nu 0}\right)D\sigma _{\nu \overline{\nu }}\left(2m_{\overline{\nu }}E_{\nu 0}\right)n_{\overline{\nu }0}1.310^510^\xi \frac{D}{1\text{Mpc}}.$$
(2)   
The probability of interacting locally in the halo is given by $`𝒫_I(E_\nu )=1e^{\tau _{D\nu }}\tau _{D\nu }`$. As long as its size is not extremely large, $`D50`$ Mpc, the interaction probability, $`𝒫_I`$, is small except for very large density enhancement factors.

Taking the local neutrino flux entering the halo region to be $`\varphi (E_\nu )`$, the injection energy through resonant $`Z^0`$ production is simply given by:

$`_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑E_\nu E_\nu 𝒫_I(E_\nu )\varphi (E_\nu )}`$ (3)   
$``$ $`1.3[E_\nu ^{res}]^2𝒫_I(E_\nu ^{res})\varphi (E_\nu ^{res}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z}{M_Z}},`$ (4)   
where the last expression corresponds to the common approximation used for integrating the resonant cross section and the factor makes the expression numerically exact for a neutrino spectral index of 2. Following Waxman, Eq.(4) can be equated to the produced energy flux of cosmic rays to obtain $`\varphi (E_\nu ^{res})`$:

$$_p=_{E_{min}}^{E_{max}}𝑑EE\varphi _p(E),$$
(5)   
where $`\varphi _p(E)`$ is the higher energy cosmic ray flux tail assumed to be due to this mechanism. For a neutrino spectral index $`\gamma `$, the flux is:

$$\varphi _\nu (E)=\frac{_p}{1.3[E_\nu ^{res}]^2𝒫_I(E_\nu ^{res})\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z/M_Z}\left[\frac{E_\nu }{E_\nu ^{res}}\right]^\gamma .$$
(6)   
The important point is that $`\varphi (E_\nu ^{res})`$ is inversely proportional to the interaction probability at the resonance peak $`𝒫_I(E_\nu ^{res})`$ and to its width $`\delta E_\nu `$. One should expect extrapolations of this flux with a fairly constant spectral index $`\gamma `$ both below and above the resonant energy because experience in astrophysical fluxes and theoretical considerations are very strong in supporting a neutrino flux spanning a few decades in energy. High energy fluxes from low interacting particles are severely constrained by existing experiments . For the range of energies considered here the strongest limit is given by the Fly’s Eye group . The non observation of horizontal air showers allows to put a limit on the integrated flux of any low interacting particle. Provided the neutrino flux can be extrapolated to the effective energy threshold for the Fly’s Eye bound, $`E_F10^8`$ GeV:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu (E_F)=_{E_F}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E\varphi _\nu (E)\left[1𝒫_I(E_\nu )\right]\mathrm{\Phi }_0.$$
(7)   
Fixing the neutrino mass, assuming $`\gamma >1`$, choosing a conservative (high) value of $`E_{min}=\mathrm{5\hspace{0.33em}10}^{19}`$ eV, and $`2.5`$ for the proton spectral index in Eq.( 5), we can constrain the region of allowed values of $`\gamma `$ and $`𝒫_I`$, using Eq.( 6) for $`\varphi _\nu `$. This is shown in fig. 1 for $`m_\nu =0.1,1`$, and 10 eV. The figure shows that there is a critical spectral index $`\gamma =2.15`$ above which the model is ruled out for all masses in the $`0.110`$ eV range. That is if $`\gamma >2.15`$ horizontal showers should have been observed even in the event that all neutrinos in the resonant energy range were converted to UHECR. If $`\gamma 1.2`$ however, a very low (depending on the neutrino mass) conversion probability could be allowed by data.

Using Eq.( 2) to substitute the probability $`𝒫_I(E_\nu )`$ into the experimental limit expression in Eq. (7) we get a region of allowed parameter space $`\xi ,D`$ for any given value of $`m_\nu `$ and $`\gamma `$. This is shown in fig. 2 where the limits are given as the continuous lines for different values of the neutrino spectral index.

Further restrictions apply in this parameter plot. The maximum density is constrained by the Fermi distribution to be :

$$n_{\nu 0}\mathrm{1.5\hspace{0.33em}10}^3\left(\frac{m_\nu }{1\text{eV}}\right)^3\left(\frac{v}{220\text{km/s}}\right)^3\text{cm}^3,$$
(8)   
where $`v`$ is the characteristic neutrino velocity in the halo. However, given the strong dependence on the neutrino mass and an unknown velocity we take it as a free parameter.

In addition, if the total number of background neutrinos in the Universe is fixed, the density enhancement factors in the halo, their sizes and the maximum total number of halos are related. For constant density halos, assuming that no neutrinos are outside them, the number of neutrino clusters, in a Hubble radius, of a given size and a given enhancement factor is simply $`N_c=10^\xi (R_H/D)^3`$, where $`R_H`$ is the Hubble radius. One can now easily see that the maximum number of halos can be read in a slant coordinate shown as dashed lines in Figs. 2,3. The three lines correspond to a single halo, $`\mathrm{3\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$ and $`10^{10}`$ halos. The shaded region above the upper line implies less than 1 halo within a Hubble radius which is meaningless. The $`\mathrm{3\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$ and $`10^{10}`$ halo lines roughly correspond to one halo per supercluster (every 4 $`10^6`$ Mpc<sup>3</sup>) and to one per galaxy (every 500 Mpc<sup>3</sup>) respectively. Note that this is a maximum number of halos, for instance below the lower curve models can still have clusters around all galaxies, as long as the population of neutrinos in between the halos is non zero.

Notice that protons are attenuated in the CMB in an energy loss distance of about 50 Mpc. This means that for $`D>50`$ Mpc the region of the halo outside a sphere of this radius centered around us can be ignored for the production of the local UHECR spectrum. Halo sizes exceeding 50 Mpc should be considered in these plots as having an effective size of 50 Mpc.

The approach is very conservative. Eq.(4) neglects fractions of the $`Z^0`$ production energy which goes into particles that cannot be UHECR. The $`Z^0`$ decay will produce a particle flux following a typical fragmentation spectrum and the decay of the unstable particles will add low energy particles which cannot contribute to the UHECR. Neither can neutrinos from $`Z^0`$ and pion decays nor that part of the high energy particles that are degraded by the showering developed in the intergalactic medium. The proton energy flux in Eq.(5) depends on the limits of the integration. It has been conservatively estimated by setting them close to the UHE part of the CR spectrum. As the observed cosmic ray flux spectral index at these energies is about 2.5, the lower integration limit gives the dominant contribution to the integral. The upper limit is not so relevant and it is in any case bounded by the neutrino resonance energy which in turn depends on the neutrino mass. For harder spectral indices closer to 2 one gets a similar result using an upper limit of order $`E_{max}=100E_{min}`$ as in Ref. .

We have also done an analytical calculation of the proton and photon fluxes originated from the neutrino–antineutrino annihilation again using $`𝒫_I(E_\nu )`$ obtained from Eq. (2). The flux of protons is given by:

$$\varphi _p(E_p)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\varphi _\nu (E_\nu )\frac{d\sigma (\nu \overline{\nu }p)}{dE_p}\overline{X},$$
(9)   
where $`d\sigma /dE_p`$ is the cross section for the $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ to produce a proton of energy $`E_p`$ and $`\overline{X}`$ is the column depth of neutrinos in the halo. The cross section $`d\sigma /dE_p`$ can be written as the convolution:

$$\frac{d\sigma (\nu \overline{\nu }p)}{dz}=_z^1𝑑y\frac{d\sigma (\nu \overline{\nu }q)}{dy}f(z/y),$$
(10)   
where $`z`$ is the fraction of the energy taken by the proton, $`f(x)`$ is the fragmentation function of a quark into an hadron, and $`d\sigma (\nu \overline{\nu }q)/dy`$ is the inclusive cross section for quark production from $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ interactions. At the $`Z^0`$ resonance the non-resonant channels can be neglected at this level of precision. We use Hill’s fragmentation function , $`f(x)=N\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}15}/16x^{1.5}(1x)^2`$ with $`N=0.03`$ for baryons. For calculating the secondary UHE photon spectrum similar expressions apply with $`N=0.32`$ and an additional integral over $`\pi ^0`$ decay. These integrals are evaluated numerically. We normalize the photon plus proton spectrum to the observed cosmic ray flux at $`E>\mathrm{5\hspace{0.33em}10}^{19}`$ eV. We neglect the interaction of the high energy particles produced with the IR and CMBR which would increase the neutrino flux needed.

If we again apply the Fly’s Eye limit, parameter space becomes more restricted leaving less room for the conjecture as can be seen in fig. 3. No model with $`\gamma >2`$ is allowed in agreement with Ref.  but there is still room for harder spectral indices. The natural assumption of one halo per galaxy forcing small halo sizes and bounding the possible density enhancements is ruled out for any injection spectrum. This is unfortunate since a clear experimental signature of relatively small halo sizes would be a cosmic ray anisotropy due to the asymmetric position of the solar system within the halo, given by the ratio of our position and the galactic halo radius $`D`$. Assuming $`10\%`$ sensitivity to anisotropy a future experiment such as the Auger Observatories  could test models with halos of order 100 kpc. The picture is however not complete since neither Pauli blocking nor total mass constraints have been included. These must be related to mass density bounds that exist on different scales.

The two case studies in Ref.  use a halo size of 5 Mpc and density enhancements of 300 and 1000 ($`\xi 2.5`$ and $`\xi 3`$). As stated in Ref.  they are not in conflict with horizontal air shower data; this is because of the very hard spectral indices used, $`\gamma 1.2`$. It is interesting to notice, however, that the maximum number of halos corresponding to these models is $`\mathrm{7\hspace{0.33em}10}^5`$ and $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.33em}10}^5`$ respectively, implying that most galaxies can not have an associated neutrino halo, yet the size of these halos is of order the average inter galactic distance.

The total mass in neutrinos of such enhanced density halos is, on the other hand:

$$M_\nu =\frac{4}{3}\pi m_\nu n_\nu D^3=\mathrm{1.2\hspace{0.33em}10}^{10}D^310^\xi \left(\frac{m_\nu }{1\text{eV}}\right)M_{}$$
(11)   
Assuming a 1 eV neutrino mass this gives at least $`M_\nu =\mathrm{4.5\hspace{0.33em}10}^{14}M_{}`$ for the most favourable case with density enhancement 300. Although this mass is suggestive of supercluster scales, its size fits closer to the Local Group. Unfortunately the case studies imply a total mass in neutrinos that clearly exceeds the dynamic mass measurements associated to the Local Group. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ the mass within a sphere of radius $`R`$ given by $`H_0R=390`$ km s<sup>-1</sup> is determined to be $`M_G=5.710^{12}M_{}`$ . The mass increases by about $`10\%`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.1`$. Although the horizontal shower data and the halo mass constrains can be both met by a model neutrino mass ($`m_\nu <0.1`$eV) and spectral index $`\gamma <1.2`$, Pauli blocking arguments would imply orbital velocities exceeding $`1000`$km s<sup>-1</sup> implying that a constant density model is inconsistent.

The only other possibility that is left for these models is an even larger halo size. A halo size of $`50`$ Mpc, a neutrino spectral index of $`\gamma 1.2`$ and a neutrino mass of order $`0.1`$eV seems viable. This case corresponds to a halo mass of order $`10^{15}M_{}`$ and orbiting velocities in the 1000 km<sup>-1</sup> range. Increasing the halo size helps mostly by removing the strong constrain on the total mass.

In summary Horizontal Shower limits, mass constraints and Pauli blocking mechanisms leave very little room for UHE neutrinos to explain the origin of the UHECR. Only very large halos, relatively low neutrino masses and unusually flat spectral indices are marginally allowed. Up to now we have assumed that there is absolute lepton number symmetry and in such cases the density parameter for the neutrinos is fixed by the neutrino mass:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu =\frac{1}{h^2}\frac{m_\nu }{93\text{eV}}$$
(12)   
It is however remarkable that if there is lepton number asymmetry, as recently suggested in Ref., density enhancement comes rather naturally and is distributed uniformly over the whole Universe. Assuming that neutrinos are degenerate, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.01`$ and $`m_\nu 0.07`$ eV, they obtain an enhancement factor of $`30`$. Our analysis has been repeated considering the interactions within a sphere of $`50`$Mpc, revealing that the model is completely consistent with the Fly’s Eye limit on neutrino fluxes, provided the spectral index of the UHE neutrinos satisfies $`\gamma 1.8`$.

In any case there is no experimental signature provided by anisotropy. In the end however it is fortunate that these models can be further tested by experiment. A promising signature lies in the identification of photons as a significant component of the UHECR. This issue can be addressed by future experiments such as the Auger Observatories . Most importantly the fact that horizontal showers provide such a strict bound on these models also implies that future neutrino experiments, having much larger acceptance for neutrinos than Fly’s Eye, should be able to detect the postulated UHE neutrino fluxes. Here the Auger Observatories may also play a role together with other high energy neutrino detectors in construction or planning stages.

We would like to thank Concha Gonzalez-Garcia for many discussions after reading the manuscript and Edward Baltz and Joseph Silk for discussions on mass bounds and Graciela Gelmini, Alexander Kusenko, Ken D. Olum, Günter Sigl, and Alex Vilenkin for helpful conversations. This work was supported in part by Xunta de Galicia (XUGA-20602B98), by CICYT (AEN99-0589-C02-02), and the Fundación Pedro Barrie de la Maza.