Neutrinos in the Pierre Auger experiment

The origin of extremely high energy cosmic rays is still unknown and is one of most important puzzles in astrophysics. Identifying neutrinos among cosmic rays at the extreme energies would be a major step toward explaining the origin of cosmic rays. In this paper, the cosmic ray research at highest energies is outlined and the role of neutrinos in cosmic ray astrophysics is discussed. The prospects to detect extremely high energy neutrinos in the Pierre Auger Observatory are presented. (author)