Observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane

Authors: R. Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, J. A. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, M. Ahrens, Jean-Marco Alameddine, A. A. Alves, N. M. Amin, K. Andeen, T. Anderson, G. Anton, C. Argüelles, Yosuke Ashida, S. Athanasiadou, Spencer Axani, X. Bai, Aswathi Balagopal, S. W. Barwick, Vedant Basu, S. Baur, R. Bay, J. J. Beatty, K. H. Becker, J. Becker Tjus, Jakob Beise, Chiara Bellenghi, S. Benda, S. BenZvi, D. Berley, E. Bernardini, D. Besson, G. Binder, D. Bindig, E. Blaufuss, Summer Blot, Matthias Boddenberg, Federico Bontempo, Julia Book, Jürgen Borowka, S. Böser, O. Botner, J. Böttcher, E. Bourbeau, F. Bradascio, J. Braun, Bennett Brinson, S. Bron, Jannes Brostean-Kaiser, Ryan T. Burley, R. S. Busse, Michael Campana, Erin Carnie-Bronca, C. Chen, Z. Chen, D. Chirkin, K. Choi, Brian Clark, K. Clark, L. Classen, Alan Coleman, G. H. Collin, A. Connolly, J. M. Conrad, Paul Coppin, Pablo Correa, D. F. Cowen, R. Cross, Christian Dappen, Pranav Dave, C. De Clercq, James DeLaunay, D. Delgado López, H.-P. Dembinski, Kunal Deoskar, Abhishek Desai, P. Desiati, K. D. de Vries, G. de Wasseige, T. DeYoung, A. Diaz, J. C. Díaz–Vélez, M. Dittmer, Hrvoje Dujmović, M. Dunkman, M. A. DuVernois, Thomas Ehrhardt, P. Eller, R. Engel, Hannah Erpenbeck, John Evans, P. A. Evenson, Kwok Lung Fan, A. R. Fazely, Anatoli Fedynitch, Nora Feigl, Sebastian Fiedlschuster, A. T. Fienberg, C. Finley, L. Fischer, D. B. Fox, A. Franckowiak, E. Friedman, Alexander Fritz, Philipp Fürst, T. K. Gaisser, J. S. Gallagher, E. Ganster, Alfonso Garcia, S. Garrappa, L. Gerhardt, L. Gerhardt, Christian Gläser, Theo Glauch, T. Glüsenkamp, N. Goehlke, A. Goldschmidt, J. G. González, Sreetama Goswami, D. Grant, T. Grégoire, Spencer Griswold, C. Günther, Pascal Gutjahr, Christian Haack, A. Hallgren, R. Halliday, L. Halve, F. Halzen, Martin Ha Minh, K. Hanson, John Hardin, Alexander Harnisch, A. Haungs, K. Helbing, Felix Henningsen, Emma C. Hettinger, S. Hickford, J. Hignight, Colton Hill, G. C. Hill, K. D. Hoffman, K. Hoshina, Wenjie Hou, F. Huang, M. E. Huber, Thomas Huber, K. Hultqvist, Mirco Hünnefeld, R. Hussain, Karolin Hymon, S. In, N. Iovine, A. Ishihara, Matti Jansson, G. S. Japaridze, Minjin Jeong, Miaochen Jin, B. J. P. Jones, Donghwa Kang, Woosik Kang, X. Kang, A. Kappes, D. Kappesser, Leonora Kardum, T. Karg, Martina Karl, A. Karle, U. Katz, M. Kauer, Moritz Kellermann, J. L. Kelley, A. Kheirandish, Ken'ichi Kin, J. Kiryluk, S. R. Klein, A. Kochocki, Ramesh Koirala, H. Kolanoski, T. Kontrimas, L. Köpke, Claudio Kopper, S. Kopper, D. J. Koskinen, Paras Koundal, Michael Kovacevich, M. Kowalski, Tetiana Kozynets, Emmett Krupczak, Emma Kun, N. Kurahashi, Neha Navnitkumar Lad, Cristina Lagunas Gualda, J. L. Lanfranchi, M. J. Larson, Frederik Hermann Lauber, J. P. Lazar, J. W. Lee, K. Leonard, A. Leszczyńska, Y. Li, M. Lincetto, Qinrui Liu, M. Liubarska, Elisa Lohfink, C. J. Lozano Mariscal, L. Lu, Francesco Lucarelli, Andrew Ludwig, W. Luszczak, Y. Lyu, W. Y., J. Madsen, K. B. M. Mahn, Yuya Makino, Sarah Mancina, Ioana Codrina Mariş, I. Martinez-Soler, R. Maruyama, S. McCarthy, Thomas McElroy, Frank McNally, J. V. Mead, K. Meagher, Sarah Mechbal, Andrés Medina, Maximilian Meier, S. Meighen-Berger, Yarno Merckx, Jessie Micallef, D. Mockler, T. Montaruli, R. W. Moore, Katharina Morik, R. Morse, Marjon Moulai, Tridib Mukherjee, Richard Naab, R. Nagai, R. Nahnhauer, Uwe Naumann, Jannis Necker, Le Viet Nguyen, Hans Niederhausen, M. U. Nisa, Sarah Nowicki, D. R. Nygren, A. Obertacke Pollmann, M. Oehler, Bob Oeyen, A. Olivas, Erin O’Sullivan, Hershal Pandya, D. V. Pankova, N. Park, G. K. Parker, Ek Narayan Paudel, Larissa Paul, C. Pérez de los Heros, Lilly Peters, J. Peterson, S. Philippen, Sarah Pieper, A. Pizzuto, M. Plum, Yuriy Popovych, Alessio Porcelli, M. Prado Rodriguez, B. Pries, G. T. Przybylski, Christoph Raab, John Rack-Helleis, Amirreza Raissi, M. Rameez, K. Rawlins, I. C. Rea, Zoë Rechav, Abdul Rehman, Patrick Reichherzer, R. Reimann, Giovanni Renzi, E. Resconi, Simeon Reusch, W. Rhode, M. Richman, Benedikt Riedel, E. J. Roberts, S. Robertson, G. Roellinghoff, Martin Rongen, C. Rott, T. Ruhe, D. Ryckbosch, Devyn Rysewyk Cantu, I. Safa, Julian Saffer, D. Salazar-Gallegos, P. Sampathkumar, S. E. Sanchez Herrera, Alexander Sandrock, M. Santander, S. Sarkar, S. Sarkar, K. Satalecka, Merlin Schaufel, H. Schieler, S. Schindler, T. Schmidt, A. Schneider, J. Schneider, Frank Schröder, L. Schumacher, Georg Schwefer, S. Sclafani, D. Seckel, S. Seunarine, Ankur Sharma, S. Shefali, N. Shimizu, M. Silva, Barbara Skrzypek, B. Smithers, R. Snihur, Jan Soedingrekso, A. Søgaard, Dennis Soldin, Christian Spannfellner, G. M. Spiczak, C. Spiering, M. Stamatikos, T. Stanev, Robert Stein, J. Stettner, T. Stezelberger, B. Stokstad, T. Stürwald, Thomas Stuttard, G. W. Sullivan, I. Taboada, S. Ter–Antonyan, Jessie Thwaites, S. Tilav, Franziska Tischbein, Kirsten Tollefson, C. Tönnis, S. Toscano, D. Tosi, Alexander Trettin, M. Tselengidou, C. F. Tung, A. Turcati, R. Turcotte, Colin Turley, Jean Pierre Twagirayezu, B. Ty, Martin Unland Elorrieta, N. Valtonen-Mattila, J. Vandenbroucke, N. van Eijndhoven, D. Vannerom, J. V. Santen, J. Veitch-Michaelis, Stef Verpoest, C. Walck, W. Wang, T. B. Watson, C. Weaver, Philip Weigel, A. Weindl, Matthew J. Weiss, Jan Weldert, C. Wendt, Johannes Werthebach, Mark Weyrauch, N. Whitehorn, C. H. Wiebusch, N. Willey, D. R. Williams, Martin Wolf, Gerrit Wrede, Johan Wilfried Wulff, Xiaolin Xu, J. P. Yanez, Emre Burak Yildizci, S. Yoshida, S. Yu, Tianlu Yuan, Z. Zhang, P. Zhelnin - Science 2023 cited by 298

The origin of high-energy cosmic rays, atomic nuclei that continuously impact Earth's atmosphere, is unknown. Because of deflection by interstellar magnetic fields, cosmic rays produced within the Milky Way arrive at Earth from random directions. However, cosmic rays interact with matter near their sources and during propagation, which produces high-energy neutrinos. We searched for neutrino emission using machine learning techniques applied to 10 years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. By comparing diffuse emission models to a background-only hypothesis, we identified neutrino emission from the Galactic plane at the 4.5σ level of significance. The signal is consistent with diffuse emission of neutrinos from the Milky Way but could also arise from a population of unresolved point sources.