Investigating the correlation between ZTF TDEs and IceCube high-energy neutrinos

Abstract: The main contributors of the IceCube diffuse neutrino flux remain unclear. Tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been proposed as potential emitters of the high-energy neutrinos detected by IceCube. Therefore, investigating the correlation between the TDE population and IceCube neutrinos could help us better understand whether the TDE population could be potential high-energy neutrino emitters. In this paper, we perform a systematic search for TDEs that are associated with neutrinos in a sample including 143 IceCube neutrino alert events and 56 TDEs classified by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) - Bright Transient Survey (BTS). Furthermore, considering that the TDEs/TDE candidates reported as potential IceCube neutrino emitters are all accompanied by infrared (IR) observations, we further select the TDEs with IR observations from these 56 TDEs as a subsample to examine the correlation with neutrinos. Based on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission database, eight TDEs are identified as having IR observations. Since good spatial localization is crucial for association analysis, we employ two methods to handle alert events with large error radii in our sample. Then we employ Monte Carlo simulations to quantify the correlation between the TDE sample/subsample and IceCube neutrinos. Finally, after considering spatial and temporal criteria, the eight TDEs with IR echoes show the most significant correlation at a 2.37$\sigma$ confidence level. If we tentatively further take the time delay factor into account in the weighting scheme, the correlation enhances to 2.65$\sigma$ confidence level.