Search for High-energy Neutrinos from Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with IceCube

Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have infrared luminosities L-IR >= 10(12) L-circle dot, making them the most luminous objects in the infrared sky. These dusty objects are generally powered by starbursts with star formation rates that exceed 100M(circle dot) yr(-1), possibly combined with a contribution from an active galactic nucleus. Such environments make ULIRGs plausible sources of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos, which can be observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. We present a stacking search for high-energy neutrinos from a representative sample of 75 ULIRGs with redshift z <= 0.13 using 7.5 yr of IceCube data. The results are consistent with a background-only observation, yielding upper limits on the neutrino flux from these 75 ULIRGs. For an unbroken E-2.5 power-law spectrum, we report an upper limit on the stacked flux Phi(90%)(nu mu+(nu) over bar mu) = 3.24 x 10(-14) TeV-1 cm(-2) S-1 (E/10 TeV)(-2.5) at 90% confidence level. In addition, we constrain the contribution of the ULIRG source population to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux as well as model predictions.For complete list of authors see http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3cb6