Getting to the point:First cosmic neutrino source search with the KM3NeT / ARCA detector

• Main Author: Muller, R.S.
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://dare.uva.nl/personal/pure/en/publications/getting-to-the-point(20b0aa27-83ee-42a4-aeaa-a4f0a13f56ae).html; https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/20b0aa27-83ee-42a4-aeaa-a4f0a13f56ae; https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/129586496/Thesis.pdf; https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/129586498/cover.jpg

The identification of cosmic objects emitting high energy neutrinos provides new insights about the Universe and its active sources. The existence of cosmic neutrinos has been proven by the IceCube collaboration, but the big question of which sources these neutrinos originate from remains largely unanswered. The KM3NeT detector for Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss (ARCA), is currently being built in the Mediterranean Sea. In its full configuration with > 10 5 photomultiplier tubes installed it will have an instrumented volume of a cubic kilometre, and excel at identifying cosmic neutrino sources due to its unprecedented angular resolution (< 0.1 degree for muon neutrinos with E > 20 TeV). KM3NeT has a view of the sky complementary to IceCube, and is sensitive to neutrinos across a wide range of energies. This dissertation presents the results of the first ever performed point source search with KM3NeT/ARCA with all available processed 2021-2022 data taken with an evolving detector geometry. The analysis did not show a significant excess of neutrinos for the searched candidate sources, but as the detector will grow, and it will keep accumulating data, the sensitivity will improve very fast. Especially in the southern hemisphere, where IceCube has less sensitivity due to its position at the South Pole, KM3NeT/ARCA may add an important contribution in the future of astroparticle physics.