Prof. Christopher Wiebusch, RWTH Aachen
High energy cosmic rays have been discovered about a century ago, but still today the sources and acceleration mechanisms have not been unveiled. Astrophysical neutrinos are almost ideal messenger particles to understand the processes in the high energy universe, because they are expected to be emitted by the sources and arrive at Earth almost undisturbed. However, the detection of cosmic neutrinos is challenging and detectors of the size of a cubic kilometer are required. The most advanced experiment is the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, which has been finalized and commissioned in 2011.
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- In 2013 the IceCube has reported evidence for the observation of high energy cosmic neutrinos based on the first two years of full detector operation. Meanwhile, the result has been consolidated by the analysis of a third year of data and other detection channels.
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- The talk gives a motivation for neutrino astronomy and an introduction to the detection principles of IceCube. Selected science results with a focus on the measurement of cosmic neutrinos will be presented. The talk ends with an outlook to the future measurements and possible enhancements of IceCube to a next generation instrument.
Ort: EN-D-114, Emmy-Noether-Campus
Veranstalter: Department Physik