Neutrinos from the pulsar wind nebulae

Department of Experimental Physics, University of Łódź, ul. Pomorska 149/153, 90-236 Łódź, Poland

Corresponding author: bednar@fizwe4.fic.uni.lodz.pl

Received: 13 February 2003
Accepted: 20 May 2003

Abstract

In a recent paper we calculated the γ-ray spectra from pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), assuming that a significant amount of the pulsar rotational energy is converted into relativistic nuclei. These nuclei accelerate leptons which are responsible for most of the observed electromagnetic emission from PWNe. A small part of nuclei also interact with the matter of the supernova producing γ-rays, which can also contribute to the observed spectra of young nebulae. Here we calculate the spectra of neutrinos from the interaction of nuclei inside the nebula and the expected neutrino event rates in the 1 km² neutrino detector from the Crab Nebula (PSR 0531+21), the Vela SNR (PSR 0833-45), G 343.1-2.3 (PSR 1706-44), MSH15-52 (PSR 1509-58), 3C 58 (PSR J0205+6449), and CTB80 (PSR 1951+32). It is shown that only the Crab Nebula can produce neutrino event rate above the sensitivity limit of the 1 km² neutrino detector, provided that nuclei take most of the rotational energy lost by the pulsar. The neutrino event rate expected from the Vela SNR is comparable to that of the Crab Nebula but these neutrinos are less energetic and are emitted from a much larger region on the sky. Therefore it may be difficult to subtract the Vela SNR signal from the higher background of atmospheric neutrinos.