Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
Making sense of neutrino emission from Active Galactic Nuclei
Paolo Padovani (Technical University Munich and European Southern Observatory, Munich, Germany)
Thursday 05/11/2026 @ 15:00, Sala Antonio Sollima (IV piano Battiferro)
The 2017 association between the blazar TXS 0506+056 and a high-energy neutrino detected by IceCube triggered renewed interest in the long-standing hypothesis that active galactic nuclei (AGN) may be significant sources of astrophysical neutrinos. Subsequent studies have reported evidence for associations between jetted AGN and neutrino events, though often at marginal statistical significance and with results that are not always mutually consistent. The evidence for neutrino emission from the nearby Seyfert II galaxy NGC 1068, reported in 2022, broadened the question beyond relativistic jets and raised the possibility that different classes of AGN may contribute through different physical mechanisms. In this colloquium, I will review the current observational evidence for neutrino emission from AGN, considering both jetted and non-jetted systems. What do TXS 0506+056, NGC 1068, and other candidate sources tell us about the origin of cosmic neutrinos? Is a coherent picture emerging, and what can multi-messenger observations reveal about these extraordinary cosmic accelerators?