New constraints on the gamma-ray and high energy neutrino fluxes from the circumstellar interaction of SN 2023ixf

Abstract

Abstract The recent supernova, SN 2023ixf, one of the closest observed type II SNe has revealed the presence of a dense circumstellar material (CSM). Interaction of the SN ejecta with this dense CSM might create high energy protons of PeV energies through shock acceleration. These accelerated protons then colliding with the CSM (inelastic pp collision) can produce secondaries such as high energy gamma-rays and neutrinos. However, no gamma-rays and neutrinos have been detected by Fermi-LAT and IceCube from this event. Fermi-LAT has placed an upper limit on the gamma-ray flux above 100 MeV to be 2.6 × 10-11 erg cm-2 s-1. On the other hand, IceCube's upper limit on muon neutrino flux is 7.3 × 10-2 GeV cm-2. Taking these limits into account and using the shock-CSM properties derived from multi-wavelength observations, we obtain new upper limits on the gamma-ray (10-11 erg cm-2 s-1) and neutrino (10-3 GeV cm-2) fluxes from SN 2023ixf produced via the pp interaction channel. While we found the gamma-ray flux to be consistent with Fermi-LAT's upper limit, the neutrino flux is found to be about 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the IceCube's upper limit. We further analyse the detection prospects of such secondary signals from future SN 2023 like events with upcoming detectors, CTA and IceCube-Gen2 and found to have great discovery potential, if any similar event occurs within 7 Mpc.