Frontiers in High-Energy Astroparticle Physics

Abstract

With the discovery of evidence for neutrino mass, a vivid gamma ray sky at multi-TeV energies, and cosmic ray particles with unexpectedly high energies, astroparticle physics currently runs through an era of rapid progress and moving frontiers. The non-vanishing neutrino mass establishes one smooth component of dark matter which does not, however, supply a critical mass to the Universe. Other dark matter particles are likely to be very massive and should produce high-energy gamma rays, neutrinos, and protons in annihilations or decays. The search for exotic relics with new gamma ray telescopes, extensive air shower arrays, and underwater/-ice neutrino telescopes is a fascinating challenge, but requires to understand the astrophysical background radiations at high energies. Among the high-energy sources in the Universe, radio-loud active galactic nuclei seem to be the most powerful accounting for at least a sizable fraction of the extragalactic gamma ray flux. They could also supply the bulk of the observed cosmic rays at ultrahigh energies and produce interesting event rates in neutrino telescopes aiming at the kubic kilometer scale such as AMANDA and ANTARES. It is proposed that the extragalactic neutrino beam can be used to search for tau lepton appearance thus allowing for a proof of the neutrino oscillation hypothesis. Furthermore, a new method for probing the era of star formation at high redshifts using gamma rays is presented which requires new-generation gamma ray telescopes operating in the 10-100 GeV regime such as MAGIC and GLAST.