Towards High-Energy Neutrino Astronomy. A Historical Review

TL;DR

This paper reviews the historical development of high-energy neutrino detection, highlighting key milestones from conceptual ideas in the 1950s to the operational IceCube detector, and discusses future prospects in neutrino astronomy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical overview of the evolution of high-energy neutrino detectors and the progress towards current and future neutrino telescopes.

Findings

IceCube is now operational at the South Pole.

The journey from initial concepts to modern detectors spans over half a century.

Future neutrino telescopes may reveal extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos.

Abstract

The search for the sources of cosmic rays is a three-fold assault, using charged cosmic rays, gamma rays and neutrinos. The first conceptual ideas to detect high energy neutrinos date back to the late fifties. The long evolution towards detectors with a realistic discovery potential started in the seventies and eighties, with the pioneering works in the Pacific Ocean close to Hawaii and in Lake Baikal in Siberia. But only now, half a century after the first concepts, such a detector is in operation: IceCube at the South Pole. We do not yet know whether with IceCube we will indeed detect extraterrestrial high energy neutrinos or whether this will remain the privilege of next generation telescopes. But whatever the answer will be: the path to the present detectors was a remarkable journey. This review sketches its main milestones.