ICECUBE: Opening a Neutrino Window on the Universe from the South Pole

The IceCube project at the South Pole melted 86 holes 2.5 kilometer deep in the Antarctic ice sheet to construct an enormous astronomical observatory that is also the largest neutrino detector ever built. The experiment discovered a flux of neutrinos from deep space with energies more than a million times those of neutrinos produced at accelerator laboratories like Fermilab. Some originate in the enigmatic cosmic particle accelerators that are the sources of cosmic rays. This lecture will discuss the IceCube neutrino telescope and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin. It will highlight the recent discovery that high-energy neutrinos - and cosmic rays - originate in sources powered by rotating supermassive black holes in active galaxies. With gravitational waves, high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos, IceCube launched multiparticle astronomy.

Speaker: Francis Halzen, University of Wisconsin - Madison