The Observation of High-Energy Neutrinos from the Cosmos: Lessons Learned for Multimessenger Astronomy

TL;DR

The IceCube telescope's discovery of high-energy cosmic neutrinos has advanced multimessenger astronomy by identifying sources like TXS 0506+056 and revealing that many cosmic accelerators may be gamma-ray-obscured during neutrino emission.

Contribution

This paper reviews a decade of IceCube results, highlighting the detection of diffuse neutrino flux and identifying a key extragalactic neutrino source, providing insights for future multimessenger studies.

Findings

Detection of PeV-energy neutrinos from beyond our galaxy.

Identification of TXS 0506+056 as a neutrino source.

Implication that many cosmic accelerators are gamma-ray-obscured.

Abstract

The IceCube neutrino telescope discovered PeV-energy neutrinos originating beyond our Galaxy with an energy flux that is comparable to that of GeV-energy gamma rays and EeV-energy cosmic rays. These neutrinos provide the only unobstructed view of the cosmic accelerators that power the highest energy radiation reaching us from the universe. We will review the results from IceCube's first decade of operations, emphasizing the measurement of the diffuse multiflavored neutrino flux from the universe and the identification of the supermassive black hole TXS 0506+056 as a source of cosmic neutrinos and, therefore, cosmic rays. We will speculate on the lessons learned for multimessenger astronomy, among them that extragalactic neutrino sources may be a relatively small subset of the cosmic accelerators observed in high-energy gamma rays and that these may be gamma-ray-obscured at the times that they emit neutrinos.