Neutrino Astronomy

Neutrino astronomy is a lively discipline that has born at the cross road of particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics. Many low-energy neutrino observatories have demonstrated the possibility of investigating the functioning of the Sun, the terrestrial radiactivity and crucial astrophysical phenomena as the gravitational collapse. There are mounting evidences that extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos are observable. This impacts strongly on our understanding of the high-energy phenomena from the cosmos, and the dataset and the sensitivity continue to improve. In this chapter, the status of the investigations of neutrino radiation is outlined, aiming to provide the reader with a unified description of this discipline that covers its main observational and theoretical aspects. We collect, for a readership at Ph.D. level, the most relevant formulae, expectations, and information concerning neutrino astronomy and astrophysics. Connections with other disciplines and selected applications to particle physics are discussed. Each section begins with an overview of the material included and a brief annotated bibliographical selection to books and review papers, aimed to favor “staged access” into the vast scientific literature.