KM3NeT Time Calibration

• Published in: Proceedings of 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2019)
• Main Authors: Coniglione, R., Creusot, A., Di Palma, I., Guderian, D., Hofestädt, J., Riccobene, G., Sánchez Losa, A.
• Other Authors: AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), KM3NeT
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: time: calibration; neutrino: interaction; neutrino: atmosphere; neutrino: detector; neutrino: mass: hierarchy; photon: emission; energy: high; optical; photomultiplier; Cherenkov; KM3NeT; angular resolution; charged particle; flux; [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-INS-DET]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; [PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Orca
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02966400; https://doi.org/10.22323/1.358.0868

International audience The KM3NeT Collaboration aims at the construction of a distributedresearch infrastructure under the Mediterranean Sea that will host twounderwater neutrino detectors: ARCA and ORCA. They are optimised todetect neutrinos using the Cherenkov technique and will play animportant role in the detection of high energy astrophysicalneutrinos, ARCA, and in the study of the neutrino mass hierarchyexploiting the flux of atmospheric neutrinos, ORCA.Both detectors share the same technology: thousands digital opticalmodules, each hosting 31 3-inch photomultipliers, distributed alongtall detection units. The main difference is the distance between theoptical modules, optimised to meet the requirements of the differentscientific objectives.The reconstruction of the neutrino direction exploits the Cherenkovphotons emitted along the path of the charged particles produced inthe neutrino interactions and requires a nanosecondsynchronisation between the photomultipliers in order to get highangular resolution. This contribution describes the accurate timecalibration procedures developed to synchronise the time references ofthe photomultipliers within an optical module and of each opticalmodule within the detection unit and also between detection units.