"The Present and Future of High-Energy Neutrino Astronomy"

Presented by Dr. Naoko Kurahashi Neilson from Drexel University

The Universe has been studied using light since the dawn of astronomy, when starlight captured the human eye. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located at the geographic South Pole, observes the Universe in a different and unique way: in high-energy neutrinos. In the past decade, neutrino astronomy went from dream to reality with spectacular observations of the very first neutrino sources in the sky. In 2023, the diffuse emission of the Galactic Plane was observed in high-energy neutrinos, making it the first non-electromagnetic view of our own galaxy. Fundamentally, the IceCube detector is a particle physics detector, and astronomical observations are only possible by teasing out the signal while the backgrounds dominate at many orders of magnitude higher. By operating at the boundary of particle physics and astronomy, IceCube opened a new field. The current state of neutrino astronomy is evolving. With more future neutrino telescopes planned, the field is poised to make more discoveries.