Evidence of mutually exclusive outflow forms from a black hole X-ray binary

(2026)

Authors:

Zuobin Zhang, Jiachen Jiang, Francesco Carotenuto, Honghui Liu, Cosimo Bambi, Rob P Fender, Andrew J Young, Jakob van den Eijnden, Christopher S Reynolds, Andrew C Fabian, Julien N Girard, Joey Neilsen, James F Steiner, John A Tomsick, St脙 phane Corbel, Andrew K Hughes

Prompt Searches for Very-high-energy 纬 -Ray Counterparts to IceCube Astrophysical Neutrino Alerts

The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 997:2 (2026) 141

Authors:

J Abhir, A Biland, K Brand, T Bretz, D Dorner, L Eisenberger, D Elsaesser, P G眉nther, S Hasan, D Hildebrand, K Mannheim, M Linhoff, F Pfeifle, W Rhode, B Schleicher, V Sliusar, M Vorbrugg, R Walter, F Aharonian, F Ait Benkhali, J Aschersleben, H Ashkar, M Backes, A Brown, G Cotter

Abstract:

The search for sources of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos can be significantly advanced through a multimessenger approach, which seeks to detect the 纬-rays that accompany neutrinos as they are produced at their sources. Multimessenger observations have so far provided the first evidence for a neutrino source, illustrated by the joint detection of the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056 in high-energy (E > 1 GeV) and very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) 纬-rays in coincidence with the high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A, identified by IceCube. Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), namely FACT, H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS, continue to conduct extensive neutrino target-of-opportunity follow-up programs. These programs have two components: follow-up observations of single astrophysical neutrino candidate events (such as IceCube-170922A), and observation of known 纬-ray sources after the identification of a cluster of neutrino events by IceCube. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of follow-up observations of high-energy neutrino events observed by the four IACTs between 2017 September (after the IceCube-170922A event) and 2021 January. Our study found no associations between 纬-ray sources and the observed neutrino events. We provide a detailed overview of each neutrino event and its potential counterparts. Furthermore, a joint analysis of all IACT data is included, yielding combined upper limits on the VHE 纬-ray flux.

The galaxy鈥揺nvironment connection revealed by constrained simulations

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 91探花 University Press 546:3 (2026) stag108

Authors:

Catherine Gallagher, Tariq Yasin, Richard Stiskalek, Harry Desmond, Matt J Jarvis

Abstract:

The evolution of galaxies is known to be connected to their position within the large-scale structure and their local environmental density. We investigate the relative importance of these using the underlying dark matter density field extracted from the Constrained Simulations in BORG (CSiBORG) suite of constrained cosmological simulations. We define cosmic web environment through both dark matter densities averaged on a scale up to 16 Mpc , and through cosmic web location identified by applying DisPerSE to the CSiBORG haloes. We correlate these environmental measures with the properties of observed galaxies in large surveys using optical data (from the NASA-Sloan Atlas) and 21-cm radio data (from ALFALFA). We find statistically significant correlations between environment and colour, neutral hydrogen gas () mass fraction, star formation rate, and S茅rsic index. Together, these correlations suggest that bluer, star-forming, rich, and disc-type galaxies tend to reside in lower density areas, further from filaments, while redder, more elliptical galaxies with lower star formation rates tend to be found in higher density areas, closer to filaments. We find analogous trends with the quenching of galaxies, but notably find that the quenching of low-mass galaxies has a greater dependence on environment than the quenching of high-mass galaxies. We find that the relationship between galaxy properties and the environmental density is stronger than that with distance to filament, suggesting that environmental density has a greater impact on the properties of galaxies than their location within the larger-scale cosmic web.

The odyssey of the black hole low mass X-ray binary GX339-4: Five years of dense multi-wavelength monitoring

(2026)

Authors:

E Tremou, S Corbel, R Fender, P Woudt, JCA Miller-Jones, I Heywood, F Carotenuto, S Motta, A Tzioumis, PJ Groot, DM Russell, J Crook-Mansour, P Saikia, W Yu, J van den Eijnden, AJ van der Horst, DRA Williams-Baldwin, X Zhang

Cosmic rays, 纬 -rays, and neutrinos from discrete black hole X-ray binary ejecta

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 91探花 University Press 546:2 (2026) stag080

Authors:

Nicolas J Bacon, Alex J Cooper, Dimitrios Kantzas, James H Matthews, Rob Fender

Abstract:

The origin of cosmic rays (CRs) from outside the Solar system is unknown, as they are deflected by the interstellar magnetic field. Supernova remnants are the main candidate for CRs up to PeV energies but due to lack of evidence, they cannot be concluded as the sources of the most energetic Galactic CRs. We investigate discrete ejecta produced in state transitions of black hole X-ray binary systems as a potential source of CRs, motivated by recent TeV -ray detections by LHAASO. Starting from MAXI J1820+070, we examine the multi-wavelength observations and find that efficient particle acceleration may take place (i.e. into a robust power law), up to eV, where is the ratio of particle energy to magnetic energy. From these calculations, we estimate the global contribution of ejecta to the entire Galactic spectrum to be , with the CR contribution rising to at PeV energies, assuming roughly equal energy in non-thermal protons, non-thermal electrons, and magnetic fields. In addition, we calculate associated -ray and neutrino spectra of the MAXI J1820+070 ejecta to investigate new detection methods with CTAO, which provide strong constraints on initial ejecta size of order Schwarzschild radii ( pc) assuming a period of adiabatic expansion.