Multiwavelength and Multimessenger Observations of Blazars and Theoretical Modeling: Blazars as Astrophysical Neutrino Sources

Abstract

This contribution reviews recent advances in the possible identification of blazars as potential sources of at least some of the very-high-energy neutrinos detected by the IceCube neutrino detector at the South Pole. The basic physical requirements for neutrino production and physics constraints that may be drawn from neutrino - blazar associations are reviewed. Several individual cases of possible associations will be discussed in more detail. It is emphasized that due to $\gamma\gamma$ opacity constraints in efficiently neutrino-producing blazars, an association between X-ray -- soft $\gamma$-ray activity and very-high-energy neutrino production is more naturally expected than a connection between neutrino and high-energy/very-high-energy $\gamma$-ray activity.