Galactic discrete sources of high energy neutrinos

We review recently developed models of galactic discrete sources of high energy neutrinos. Some of them are based on a simple rescaling of the TeV gamma-ray fluxes from recently detected galactic sources, such as, shell-type supernova remnants or pulsar wind nebulae. Others present detailed and originally performed modeling of processes occurring close to compact objects, i.e., neutron stars and low mass black holes, which are supposed to accelerate hadrons close to dense matter and radiation fields. Most of the models considered in this review optimistically assume that the energy content in relativistic hadrons is equal to a significant part of the maximum observable power output in specific sources, i.e., typically similar to 10%. This may give a large overestimation of the neutrino fluxes. This is the case of models which postulate neutrino production in hadron-photon collisions already at the acceleration place, due to the likely e pair plasma domination. Models postulating neutrino production in hadron-hadron collisions avoid such problems and therefore seem to be more promising. The neutrino telescopes currently taking data have not detected any excess from discrete sources yet, although some models could already be constrained by the limits they are providing. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.