Gonzalo Merino: IceCube: catching cosmic neutrinos at the South Pole

Wednesday 21 Dec 2016, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/Madrid

Seminar (IFAE)

Jelena Aleksic (IFAE), Joern Lange (IFAE Barcelona), John E Ward (IFAE)

IceCube is a giant telescope located at the geographic South Pole. It uses one cubic kilometer of ultra-pure antarctic ice for detecting neutrinos. IceCube opens a new window to the Universe, by detecting neutrinos that arrive to Earth from very distant places. Objects like star explosions, gamma ray bursts, black holes or neutron stars could generate high energy neutrinos that can be detected by IceCube. In 2013, the British magazine Physics World awarded the "Breakthrough of the Year" to IceCube for making the first observation of cosmic neutrinos. This talk will make a brief overview of the IceCube project, present some highlights of its physics results and look at what are the prospects for the years to come.