Magnetic field effects on neutrino production in microquasars

¹ Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, (7600) Mar del Plata, Argentina e-mail: mreynoso@mdp.edu.ar
² Instituto de Investigaciones Físicas de Mar del Plata, (UNMdP – CONICET), Argentina
³ Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía (CCT La Plata – CONICET), C.C.5, 1894 Villa Elisa, Buenos Aires, Argentina
⁴ Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n, 1900 La Plata, Argentina

Received: 20 September 2008
Accepted: 14 October 2008

Abstract

Aims. We investigate the effects of magnetic fields on neutrino production in microquasars.

Methods. We calculated the steady particle distributions for the pions and muons generated in and pp interactions in the jet taking the effects of all energy losses into account.

Results. The obtained neutrino emission is significantly modified due to the synchrotron losses suffered by secondary pions and muons.

Conclusions. The estimates made for neutrino fluxes arriving on the Earth imply that detection of high-energy neutrinos from the vicinity of the compact object can be difficult. However, in the case of windy microquasars, the interaction of energetic protons in the jet with matter of dense clumps of the wind could produce detectable neutrinos. This is because the pions and muons at larger distances from the compact object will not be affected by synchrotron losses.