Ultra-luminous X-ray pulsars as sources of TeV neutrinos

Abstract

We explored the expected properties of the neutrino emission from accreting neutron stars in X-ray binaries using numerical simulations. The simulations are based on a model in which neutrinos are produced by the decay of charged pions and kaons, generated in inelastic collisions between protons accelerated up to TeV energies in the magnetosphere of a magnetized (B~1E12 G) neutron star and protons of the accretion disc. Our results show that this process can produce strong neutrino emission up to a few tens of TeV when the X-ray luminosity is above ~1E39 erg/s, as in ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) pulsars. We show that neutrinos from a transient Galactic ULX pulsar with L_x ~ 5E39 erg/s can be detected with kilometre-scale detectors such as IceCube if the source is within about 3-4 kpc. We also derived an upper limit on the neutrino flux from the Galactic ULX pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124 using IceCube data, a result that has not been previously reported. Our findings establish a new benchmark for future astrophysical neutrino observations, critical for interpreting data from current and upcoming instruments with significantly improved sensitivity.