Neutrinos as a diagnostic of cosmic ray Galactic/extra-galactic transition

Abstract

Motivated by a recent change in viewing the onset of the extra-galactic component in the cosmic ray spectrum, we have fitted the observed data down to $10^{8.6}$ GeV and have obtained the corresponding power emissivity. This transition energy is well below the threshold for resonant $p\gamma$ absorption on the cosmic microwave background, and thus source evolution is an essential ingredient in the fitting procedure. Two-parameter fits in the spectral and redshift evolution indices show that a standard Fermi $E_i^{-2}$ source spectrum is excluded at larger than 95% confidence level (CL). Armed with the primordial emissivity, we follow Waxman and Bahcall to derive the associated neutrino flux on the basis of optically thin sources. For $pp$ interactions as the generating mechanism, the neutrino flux exceeds the AMANDA-B10 90%CL upper limits. In the case of $p\gamma$ dominance, the flux is marginally consistent with AMANDA-B10 data. In the new scenario the source neutrino flux dominates over the cosmogenic flux at all energies. Thus, should data from AMANDA-II prove consistent with the model, we show that IceCube can measure the characteristic power law of the neutrino spectrum, and thus provide a window on the source dynamics.