Μελέτη της ικανότητας ανίχνευσης της διάχυτης ροής αστροφυσικών νετρίνο υψηλής ενέργειας με το τηλεσκόπιο KM3NeT/ARCA

Even though Cosmic Rays were discovered more than a century ago, the acceleration mechanisms of protons and heavier nuclei to ultra high energies still remain unknown. Being charged they are deflected by magnetic fields so they can not reveal the astrophysical objects responsible for their accelerat...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pikounis, Konstantinos, Πικούνης, Κωνσταντίνος
Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
Language:English
Published: National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10442/hedi/46179
https://doi.org/10.12681/eadd/46179
Description
Summary:Even though Cosmic Rays were discovered more than a century ago, the acceleration mechanisms of protons and heavier nuclei to ultra high energies still remain unknown. Being charged they are deflected by magnetic fields so they can not reveal the astrophysical objects responsible for their acceleration. Nevertheless, at the astrophysical objects where cosmic rays are accelerated, neutrinos are also produced. Neutrinos, being neutral, are not deflected by magnetic fields and they are not significantly absorbed by the interstellar medium, so, when detected, they can point back to their production sites. Neutrino telescopes are being deployed in the sea, in lakes and in the ice of Antarctica. They instrument large volumes of medium (water or ice) and they detect neutrinos indirectly by detecting Cherenkov light produced by neutrino-induced charged particles.KM3NeT is a collaboration building the next generation neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea. Currently two detectors are being deployed by KM3NeT; the ORCA - Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss detector, which aims to study the fundamental properties of neutrinos as well as the ARCA - Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss telescope. The main science objectives of the ARCA telescope are the detection of neutrinos from astrophysical sources and the measurement of the diffuse astrophysical high energy flux. In this thesis a study of the discovery potential of the KM3NeT/ARCA telescope to the diffuse astrophysical high energy neutrino flux using High Energy Starting Events (HESE) is presented. The use of HESE comprises a novel approach for the KM3NeT collaboration. In Chapter 1 the production mechanisms of Cosmic Rays and astrophysical neutrinos are described. The detection principle of neutrino telescopes, the background for underwater neutrino telescopes as well as the major existing neutrino telescopes are presented in Chapter 2. The KM3NeT collaboration is described in Chapter 3 as well as the KM3NeT detectors. In Chapter 4 GRBNeT - ...