Astrophysics and Astronomy

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Neutrino Astronomy

Why Neutrinos

Questions in ultra high energy astrophysics

Source of UHE cosmic rays

GRBs

AGN

Other Physics Questions – DM, Top Down models, etc

Understanding the W-B bound

Why the kilometer scale or bigger

Overview of experimental approach

Cherenkov Detectors- IceCube – Nestor, Antares, Baikal

Radio - Rice, Anita, Salsa

Slide 2

Why Neutrinos

Slide 3

Why not protons?

Protons are bent in the magnetic fields of our galaxy and local cluster

Energy of >1019eV needed to point back to even galactic sources

Above a few 1019eV GZK cutoff limits their range too

Slide 4

•Effect of IR Absorption on No direct measurement of IR extragalactic background light exists due to zodiacal foreground.

•TeV absorption constrains IR which depends on cosmology of galaxy and star formation models.

Distant Sources

Slide 5

Photon Attenuation on IR

Slide 6

Questions in ultra high energy astrophysics Source of UHE cosmic rays

GRBs

AGN

Dark Matter

Other Physics Questions

Slide 7

Origin of Cosmic Rays

Slide 8

Slide 9

Alternative Models Bottom up

GRB fireballs

Jets in active galaxies

Accretion shocks in galaxy clusters

Galaxy mergers

Young supernova remnants

Pulsars, Magnetars

Mini-quasars

…

Observed showers either protons (or nuclei)

Top-down

Radiation from topological defects

Decays of massive relic particles in Galactic halo

Resonant neutrino interactions on relic n’s (Z-bursts)

Mostly pions (ns,gs,not protons)

Disfavored!

Highest energy cosmic rays

are not gamma rays

Overproduce TeV-neutrinos

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Slide 11

SNRs

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