Dust-obscured radio-emitting tidal disruption event coincident with a high-energy neutrino event
Phys. Rev. D 113, 043046 – Published 23 February, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/j8g9-f6hh
Abstract
Despite the growing number of high-energy neutrinos (TeV–PeV) detected by IceCube, their astrophysical origins remain largely unidentified. Recent observations have linked a few tidal disruption events (TDEs) to the production of high-energy neutrino emission, all of which display dust-reprocessed infrared flares, indicating a dust- and gas-rich environment. By cross-matching the neutrino events and a sample of mid-infrared outbursts in nearby galaxies with transient radio flares, we uncover an optically obscured TDE candidate, SDSS , which shows both spatial and temporal coincidence with the sub-PeV neutrino event IC170514B. Using a standard equipartition analysis of the synchrotron spectral evolution spanning 605 days post mid-infrared discovery, we find a little evolution in the radio-emitting region, with a kinetic energy up to , depending on the outflow geometry and shock acceleration efficiency assumed. High-resolution European VLBI Network imaging reveals a compact radio emission that is unresolved at a scale of , with a brightness temperature of , suggesting that the observed late-time radio emission might originate from the interaction between a decelerating outflow and a dense circumnuclear medium. If the association is genuine, the neutrino production is possibly related to the acceleration of protons through collisions during the outflow expanding process, implying that the outflow-cloud interaction could provide a physical site with a high-density environment for producing the sub-PeV neutrinos. Such a scenario can be tested with future identifications of radio transients coincident with high-energy neutrinos.