KM3NeT11 - Cruise No. M83/4 - January 24 - February 6, 2011 - Valetta (Malta) - Valetta (Malta)

• Main Author: Van Haren, Hans
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: DFG-Senatskommission für Ozeanographie 2015
• Subjects: Earth Science; Earth sciences and geology; Nestor; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.2312/cr_m83_4; https://www.tib.eu/suchen/id/awi:d352831b4555b98051563d32395bf2269aa57982

KM3NeT, a European deep-sea research infrastructure, will host a neutrino telescope with a volume of at least one cubic kilometer at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea that will open a new window on the Universe. The telescope will search for neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources like gamma ray bursters, supernovae or colliding stars and will be a powerful tool in the search for dark matter in the Universe. An array of thousands of optical sensors will detect the faint light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos and the Earth. The facility will also house instrumentation from Earth and marine sciences for long term and on-line monitoring of the deep sea environment and the sea bottom at depths of several kilometers. Presently, several MEuro EU-funding is granted to design and prepare the KM3NeT structure. Eventually, 150-250 MEuro is needed to actually build the telescope. Proposed sites are in the Northern Hemisphere, to compliment the IceCube-telescope in Antarctica, in the Mediterranean Sea where sufficiently deep waters are found within several tens of kilometers from coasts. Three sites are selected: ANTARES near Toulon France, NEMO east of Sicily Italy, NESTOR west of Peloponessos Greece. : METEOR-Berichte