8 December 2020

Current trends in gravitation Seminar

Location: University Oldenburg - Online
When: 8.12.2020, 14:15 h

Speaker: Silke Britzen (Max Planck Institute for Radio-astronomy Bonn, Germany)
Title: The lightest particles and the heaviest black holes: How neutrinos are produced in AGN

Abstract: The South Pole Neutrino Observatory „IceCube" detects high-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin. However, so far it is not clear, from which source class these neutrinos predominantly originate. Moreover, the neutrino generating mechanism is not known either. Supermassive black holes in the centers of massive galaxies appear as powerful Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) when they accrete gas.The jets of these AGN are supposed to be a likely site of the neutrino emission. Expected is a correlation of the neutrino emission with gamma-ray emission.Yet only a minority of the gamma-bright AGN appear as likely candidates for neutrino emission. At least two high energy neutrino events could be reliably traced back to their cosmic birthplace. Based on a very detailed analysis of high resolution radio interferometric observations and light-curve data (radio, gamma) we unmask the unusual AGN jet dynamics and radiation properties of high-energy neutrino emitters.