THE SEARCH FOR NEUTRINO SOURCES BEYOND THE SUN

• Main Authors: S. Barwick, F. Halzen, P. B. Price
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1995
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.254.9154; http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9512079v1.pdf

The hope is that in the near future neutrino astronomy, born with the identification of thermonuclear fusion in the sun and the particle processes controlling the fate of a nearby supernova, will reach throughout and beyond our Galaxy and make measurements relevant to cosmology, astrophysics, cosmic-ray and particle physics. The construction of a highenergy neutrino telescope requires a huge volume of very transparent, deeply buried material such as ocean water or ice, which acts as the medium for detecting the particles. The AMANDA[1] muon and neutrino telescope, now operating 4 strings of photomultiplier tubes buried in deep ice at the South Pole, is scheduled to be expanded to a 10-string array. The data collected over the first 2 years cover the 3 basic modes in which such instruments are operated: i) the burst mode which monitors the sky for supernovae, ii) the detection of electromagnetic showers initiated by PeV-energy cosmic electron neutrinos, and iii) muon trajectory reconstruction for neutrino and gamma-ray astronomy. We speculate on the possible architectures of kilometer-scale instruments, using early data as a guideline. 1 HIGH ENERGY NEUTRINO ASTRONOMY: SCIENCE REACH Attempts to push astronomy beyond the GeV photon energy of satellite-borne telescopes, to wavelengths smaller than 10 −16 cm, have been initiated over the last several decades.