IceHEP high energy physics at the South Pole

With the solar and SN87 neutrino observations as proofs of concepts, the kilometer-scale neutrino experiment IceCube will scrutinize its data for new particle physics. In this paper, we review the prospects for the realization of such a program. We begin with a short overview of the detector response and discuss the reach of "beam" luminosity. After that we discuss the potential of IceCube to probe deviations of neutrino-nucleon cross-sections from the Standard Model predictions at center-of-mass energies well beyond those accessible in man-made accelerators. Then we review the prospects for extremely long-baseline analyses and discuss the sensitivity to measure tiny deviations of the flavor mixing angle, expected to be induced by quantum gravity effects. Finally, we discuss the potential to uncover annihilation of dark matter particles gravitationally trapped at the center of the Sun, as well as processes occurring in the early Universe at energies close to the Grand Unification scale. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.