Cosmic Neutrino Pevatrons: A Brand New Pathway to Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Particle Physics

Abstract

The announcement by the IceCube Collaboration of the observation of 28 cosmic neutrino candidates has been greeted with a great deal of justified excitement. The data reported so far depart by 4.3\sigma from the expected atmospheric neutrino background, which raises the obvious question: "Where in the Cosmos are these neutrinos coming from?" We review the many possibilities which have been explored in the literature to address this question, including origins at either Galactic or extragalactic celestial objects. For completeness, we also briefly discuss new physics processes which may either explain or be constrained by IceCube data.

Comments: This is a review article solicited for the inaugural edition of Journal of High Energy Astrophysics (JHEAp). Matching version accepted for publication