Volume 501 - 39th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2025) - Cosmic-Ray Indirect
Probing the Cosmic-Ray Proton Fraction with Cosmogenic Multi-PeV Neutrinos and Gamma-rays Constraints
A. Cermenati*, A. Ambrosone, R. Aloisio, D. Boncioli and C. Evoli
*: corresponding author
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: September 23, 2025
Published on: December 30, 2025
Abstract
The recent detection of a multi-PeV neutrino event by KM3NeT/ARCA opens a new window into
the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). We revise the possibility of a cosmogenic
origin of this neutrino by analysing the constraints induced by cascaded photons onto the isotropic
gamma-ray background measured by the Fermi-LAT collaboration. We consider two scenarios:
the first one, at low energies, with a primary proton population saturating the Pierre Auger
Observatory data. The second one, the high-energy scenario, is a sub-population of protons
contaminating the UHECR flux. Remarkably, the cascaded photons constrain the LE scenario
which cannot explain the KM3-230213A event, if the cosmological evolution of the sources is
too strong, because the corresponding gamma-ray spectrum would overshoot the corresponding
measurements. By contrast, the high-energy scenario is allowed by current cosmic-rays, neutrinos
and gamma-rays data and only future constraints on the UHECR composition will further constrain
this scenario.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.501.0215
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