The importance of observing astrophysical tau neutrinos

Understand

The evidence of a new population of diffuse high-energy neutrinos, obtained by IceCube, has opened a new era in the field of neutrino physics.

• Up to now the events detected are still without any source counterpart.
• The detected events are compatible with the standard picture of cosmic neutrinos undergoing 3-flavor neutrino oscillations.
• We analyze the implications of neutrino oscillations for the present and future experiments, focusing particularly on tau neutrinos.