Status of Neutrino Astronomy - a mini-review on neutrino telescopes

TL;DR

This mini-review discusses the current status and sensitivities of neutrino telescopes, emphasizing their potential to identify cosmic high-energy neutrino sources and the implications of existing upper limits on source models.

Contribution

It provides an updated overview of neutrino telescope capabilities, sensitivities, and the current constraints on neutrino emissions from various astrophysical sources.

Findings

IceCube has completed its first cubic-kilometer detector.

Current upper limits constrain models of high-energy neutrino sources.

Neutrino telescopes are approaching the sensitivity needed to detect cosmic sources.

Abstract

With the completion of the first cubic-kilometer class neutrino telescopes, IceCube, the race for the discovery of the first cosmic high-energy neutrino sources enters into a new phase. The usage of neutrinos as cosmic messengers has the potential to significantly enhance and extend our knowledge on Galactic and extragalactic sources of the high-energy universe. This article gives a short review on the status of neutrino telescopes and their sensitivities concentrating on point-like sources. It discusses the current upper limits on neutrino emissions and their implications for models of different source classes.