WoU-MMA: Luminous Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Systems as High-Energy Neutrino Factories

在过去的十年里，位于南极洲的NSF冰立方天文台一直在寻找高能中微子。为了制造中微子，你需要以接近光速的速度将小的亚原子粒子粉碎在一起。虽然科学家们知道这一点已经有一段时间了，但自然界的中微子工厂藏在哪里仍然是一个谜。最近，长达十年的追求使科学家们找到了星系TXS 0506+056。这个星系伴随着光脉冲发射出高能中微子。尽管发现了这个星系，科学家们仍然不明白是什么使它成为中微子工厂。利用研究人员计划开发的计算机代码，他们将在世界上最大的超级计算机中重现这个星系的中心区域。然后，他们将在赛博星系内部寻找粒子加速和碰撞的任何地方。他们将对所有这样的地方进行编目，并识别出那些既发射中微子又发射光的地方，与真实的星系的观测结果相匹配。这将有助于我们揭示大自然如何以及在哪里制造高能中微子和光的秘密，使世界各地的科学家能够更好地了解大自然的中微子工厂。PI将把实验带到当地的一所高中，并让高中生参与现实世界的数据分析和可视化。 学生将获得使用大数据的经验，他们将建立课堂物理实验。中微子产生地点及其物理条件知之甚少。一个高能中微子与一个伽马射线耀斑同时被探测到的事实表明，这两个信使起源于同一个区域，很可能在相对论喷流内部。在大约6个月内从TXS 0506+056方向发现了大约12个高能中微子，而没有任何伴随的伽马射线耀斑，这使情况变得复杂，因为这意味着中微子和伽马射线不是在空间上产生的。 需要回答的一些问题包括：黑洞周围的辐射倾斜薄盘的结构是什么？在这样的流动中，耗散区在哪里？高能中微子的产生地点有哪些？它们是通过光强子或强子核相互作用产生的？为什么大多数来自TXS 0506+056方向的中微子没有明亮的电磁对应物？发光的吸积流是如何设法产生强大的射电喷流的，而不像标准的预期那样，这种圆盘是厌恶喷流的？这种流动的范围和可变性如何？理解这些问题将使科学界能够有意义地和定量地解释黑洞吸积的多信使观测。 该奖项旨在解决/推进Windows on the Universe Big Idea的目标。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

For the past decade, NSF's Ice Cube observatory located in Antarctica has been on the hunt for energetic neutrinos. To make neutrinos, you need to smash small, subatomic particles together at near light speeds. While scientists have known this for a while, where nature hides its neutrino factories has remained a mystery. Recently, the decade-long pursuit led scientists to the galaxy TXS 0506+056. This galaxy emitted high-energy neutrinos alongside a pulse of light. Despite finding the galaxy, the scientists still do not understand what makes it into a neutrino factory. Using a computer code the researchers plan to develop, they will recreate the central regions of this galaxy inside of the world's largest supercomputers. They will then look inside of the cyber-galaxy for any places where particles accelerate and smash together. They will catalog all such places and identify those that emit both neutrinos and light, matching the observations of the real galaxy. This will help us to reveal the secrets of how and where nature makes energetic neutrinos and light, enabling the scientists around the world to better understand nature's neutrino factories. The PI will bring experiments into a local high-school and will involve high-school students in real-world data analysis and visualization. Students will gain experience working with Big Data, and they will set up in-class physical experiments. Neutrino production sites and their physical conditions are poorly understood. The fact that one high-energy neutrino was detected simultaneously with a gamma-ray flare suggested that both messengers originate in the same region, likely inside the relativistic jet. The discovery of roughly a dozen of high-energy neutrinos from the direction of TXS 0506+056 within ~6 months without any accompanying gamma-ray flare complicates the picture, as it implies that neutrinos and gamma-rays are not produced co-spatially.  Some questions to be answered include: What is the structure of radiative tilted thin disks around black holes? Where are the dissipation regions in such flows? What are the production sites of high-energy neutrinos? Are they produced via photo-hadronic or hadro-nuclear interactions? Why do most of the neutrinos coming from the direction of TXS 0506+056 have no bright electromagnetic counterpart? How do luminous accretion flows manage to produce powerful radio jets, defying the standard expectation that such disks are jet-phobic? What is the spectrum and variability of such flows? Understanding these issues will allow the scientific community to meaningfully and quantitatively interpret multi-messenger observations of black hole accretion. This award addresses/advances the goals of the Windows on the Universe Big Idea.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.