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Cherenkov Neutrino Telescopes: Recent Progress and Next Steps

Aya Ishihara

Abstract

Neutrino telescopes provide a unique observational gateway to the high-energy universe, enabling the study of cosmic accelerators and extreme environments that remain inaccessible to the other high-energy messengers. Although they share core detection principles with neutrino experiments in particle physics, such as the observation of Cherenkov radiation, their scientific objectives and operational constraints diverge markedly. This paper reviews the motivations behind astrophysical neutrino detection, outlines key design strategies across various media and deployment environments, and highlights the critical role of neutrino telescopes in the context of multimessenger astronomy. In particular, we emphasize their potential to illuminate the origins of cosmic rays and to probe the mechanisms driving the most energetic phenomena in the universe.

Cherenkov Neutrino Telescopes: Recent Progress and Next Steps

Abstract

Neutrino telescopes provide a unique observational gateway to the high-energy universe, enabling the study of cosmic accelerators and extreme environments that remain inaccessible to the other high-energy messengers. Although they share core detection principles with neutrino experiments in particle physics, such as the observation of Cherenkov radiation, their scientific objectives and operational constraints diverge markedly. This paper reviews the motivations behind astrophysical neutrino detection, outlines key design strategies across various media and deployment environments, and highlights the critical role of neutrino telescopes in the context of multimessenger astronomy. In particular, we emphasize their potential to illuminate the origins of cosmic rays and to probe the mechanisms driving the most energetic phenomena in the universe.
Paper Structure (6 sections, 4 figures)

This paper contains 6 sections, 4 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Neutrino and multimessenger astronomy
  3. Detection Principles and Medium Properties
  4. Deployment Strategies and Calibrations
  5. The IceCube Upgrade as a Calibration and Testbed Platform
  6. Summary and Outlook

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Energy spectra of neutrinos and the corresponding detection ranges. Red labels indicate the neutrino sources included in the flux shown by the gray lines (the black line represents the expected lowest level of the cosmogenic flux). The other labels mark current and future neutrino detectors and neutrino telescopes.
  • Figure 2: Multimessenger spectrum showing diffuse gamma rays, neutrinos, and cosmic rays across energy scales. The gray line indicates the gamma-ray flux, the black dotted line represents the galactic and extragalactic cosmic-ray flux, and the colored markers and the gray band show measured neutrino fluxes estes_2024combinedfit_2025combinedfit_2025bglashow_2021. The red line indicates the upper limit from IceCube’s extremely high-energy neutrino search ehe_2025.
  • Figure 3: Depth-dependent scattering and absorption properties of South Pole glacial ice. Further details are provided in ice_led_2024.
  • Figure 4: Representative subset of Upgrade modules that had arrived at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station by the end of the 2024/2025 season. The two modules on the white stands at the center are a D-Egg and an mDOM, alongside a PDOM on the gray stand.