High-energy neutrino astronomy: a glimpse of the promised land

Abstract

In 2012, physicists and astronomers celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the detection of cosmic rays by Viktor Hess. A year later, in 2013, the first evidence of extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos emerged, promising fundamental insight into the origin of cosmic rays. The evidence was obtained from the data from the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole. When the idea of this telescope was first discussed at the 1973 International Cosmic Ray Conference, it was beyond anyone's imagination that it would take a biblical forty years before the first discoveries would be made and the promised land of the high energy neutrino would first be glimpsed. This paper sketches the development towards highly sensitive detectors, describes the latest results from the IceCube and ANTARES neutrino telescopes, and takes a look into the future.