Can tidal disruption events produce the IceCube neutrinos?

Abstract

© 2017 The Authors. Powerful jets and outflows generated in tidal disruption events (TDEs) around supermassive black holes have been suggested as possible sites producing high-energy neutrinos, but it is unclear whether such an environment can provide the bulk of the neutrinos detected by the IceCube Observatory. In this work, by considering realistic limits on the non-thermal emission power of a TDE jet and the birth rate of the TDEs with jets pointing towards us, we show that it is hard to use the jetted TDE population to explain the large flux and isotropic arrival directions of the observed TeV-PeV neutrinos. Therefore, TDEs cannot be the dominant sources, unless those without aligned jets can produce wide-angle emission of high-energy neutrinos. Supposing that is the case, we list a few recent jetted and non-jetted TDEs that have the best chance to be detected by IceCube, based on their energetics, distances and directions. A spatial and temporal association of these predicted events with the IceCube data should provide a decisive test on TDEs as origin of the IceCube neutrinos.