High-energy Neutrino Astronomy: Science and First Results

Abstract

We introduce neutrino astronomy starting from the observational fact that Nature accelerates protons and photons to energies in excess of 10^{20} and 10^{13} eV, respectively. Although the discovery of cosmic rays dates back a century, we do not know how and where they are accelerated. We review the observations as well as speculations about the sources. Among these gamma ray bursts and active galaxies represent well-motivated speculations because these are also the sources of the highest energy gamma rays, with emission observed up to 20 TeV, possibly higher. We discuss why cosmic accelerators are expected to be cosmic beam dumps producing neutrino beams associated with the highest energy cosmic rays. Cosmic ray sources may produce neutrinos from MeV to EeV energy by a variety of mechanisms. The important conclusion is that, independently of the specific blueprint of the source, it takes a kilometer-scale neutrino observatory to detect the neutrino beam associated with the highest energy cosmic rays and gamma rays. The technology for commissioning such instrument has been established by the AMANDA detector at the South Pole. We review its performance and, with several thousand neutrinos collected, its first scientific results.