Neutrino Astronomy with IceCube and its Deep Core extension

With IceCube, the world's largest neutrino observatory at the South Pole, a world wide effort has been initiated to search for high-energy neutrinos originating from cosmic phenomena. Neutrinos are special astronomical messengers; only they can carry information from cosmological events at the edge of the Universe directly towards the Earth.

A central issue concerning the most violent cosmic phenomena, e.g. Gamma Ray Bursts and Active Galactic Nuclei, is the identification of a hadronic component in the emission. Observations of gamma rays remain inconclusive, but detection of related neutrino activity would unambiguously reveal such a hadronic component. Furthermore, observation of a time difference between the electromagnetic and neutrino bursts would reflect different production c.q. acceleration mechanisms, thus providing insight in the physical processes underlying these cataclysmic events.

The combination of IceCube data with electromagnetic observations opens up the possibility of simultaneously addressing the above features for the first time in history. With the GLAST satellite being operational and the commissioning of IceCube well underway, it is now timely to start a research effort along these lines. Whereas GLAST observations provide the electromagnetic information, IceCube with its Deep Core extension will allow us to search for related neutrino activity with unprecedented sensitivity. The Deep Core represents a dense array of sensors down to the largest possible depths in the Antarctic ice and completely surrounded by the standard IceCube sensors, acting as a veto. These unique Deep Core features provide a very low background environment and enable an extension of the neutrino energy domain of IceCube down to about 20 GeV, resulting in a significant sensitivity increase and a full solid angle coverage including the Southern sky. As such, IceCube's Deep Core extension will allow us to study sources in our own Galaxy, including the massive black hole at its center.