Neutrinos produced by ultrahigh-energy photons at high redshift

Some of the proposed explanations for the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays invoke new sources of energetic photons (e.g., topological defects, relic particles, etc.). At high redshift, when the cosmic microwave background has a higher temperature but the radio background is low, the ultrahigh-energy photons can generate neutrinos through pair production of muons and pions. The resulting diffuse background of 10(17) eV neutrinos can be detected by future experiments.