PeV neutrinos from intergalactic interactions of cosmic rays emitted by active galactic nuclei.

The observed very high energy spectra of distant blazars are well described by secondary gamma rays produced in line-of-sight interactions of cosmic rays with background photons. In the absence of the cosmic-ray contribution, one would not expect to observe very hard spectra from distant sources, but the cosmic ray interactions generate very high energy gamma rays relatively close to the observer, and they are not attenuated significantly. The same interactions of cosmic rays are expected to produce a flux of neutrinos with energies peaked around 1 PeV. We show that the diffuse isotropic neutrino background from many distant sources can be consistent with the neutrino events recently detected by the IceCube experiment. We also find that the flux from any individual nearby source is insufficient to account for these events. The narrow spectrum around 1 PeV implies that some active galactic nuclei can accelerate protons to EeV energies.

Secondary photons and neutrinos from cosmic rays produced by distant blazars.

Secondary photons and neutrinos produced in the interactions of cosmic ray protons emitted by distant active galactic nuclei (AGN) with the photon background along the line of sight can reveal a wealth of new information about the intergalactic magnetic fields, extragalactic background light, and the acceleration mechanisms of cosmic rays. The secondary photons may have already been observed by gamma-ray telescopes. We show that the secondary neutrinos improve the prospects of discovering distant blazars by IceCube, and we discuss the ramifications for the cosmic backgrounds, magnetic fields, and AGN models.