Dependence of atmospheric muon flux on seawater depth measured with the first KM3NeT detection units The KM3NeT Collaboration

• Published in: The European Physical Journal C
• Main Authors: Ageron, M., Aiello, S., Ameli, F., Andre, M., Androulakis, G., Anghinolfi, M., Anton, G., Ardid Ramírez, Miguel, Aublin, J., Bagatelas, C., Barbarino, G., Baret, B., du Pree, S. Basegmez, Belias, A., Berbee, E., Tortosa, Dídac D., Llorens Alvarez, Carlos David, Martínez Mora, Juan Antonio, Poirè, Chiara
• Other Authors: Universitat Politècnica de València. Instituto de Investigación para la Gestión Integral de Zonas Costeras - Institut d'Investigació per a la Gestió Integral de Zones Costaneres, Universitat Politècnica de València. Escuela Politécnica Superior de Gandia - Escola Politècnica Superior de Gandia, Universitat Politècnica de València. Departamento de Física Aplicada - Departament de Física Aplicada, European Commission, MINISTERIO DE ECONOMIA Y EMPRESA, National Science Centre, Polonia, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Francia, Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, MINISTERIO DE CIENCIA, INNOVACIÓN Y UNIVERSIDADES, Fundació Bancària Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, Ministero dell'Istruzione dell'Università e della Ricerca, Italia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer-Verlag 2020
• Subjects: KM3NeT neutrino telescope; Atmospheric muon; First detection unit; FISICA APLICADA; Orca
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/176175; https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7629-z

[EN] KM3NeT is a research infrastructure located in the Mediterranean Sea, that will consist of two deep-sea Cherenkov neutrino detectors. With one detector (ARCA), the KM3NeT Collaboration aims at identifying and studying TeV¿PeV astrophysical neutrino sources. With the other detector (ORCA), the neutrino mass ordering will be determined by studying GeV-scale atmospheric neutrino oscillations. The first KM3NeT detection units were deployed at the Italian and French sites between 2015 and 2017. In this paper, a description of the detector is presented, together with a summary of the procedures used to calibrate the detector in-situ. Finally, the measurement of the atmospheric muon flux between 2232¿3386 m seawater depth is obtained. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Agence Nationale de la Recherche (contract ANR-15-CE31-0020), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Paris Ile-de-France Region, France; Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG, FR-18-1268), Georgia; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany; The General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT), Greece; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR), PRIN 2017 program (Grant NAT-NET 2017W4HA7S) Italy; Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Professional Training, Morocco; Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; The National Science Centre, Poland (2015/18/E/ST2/00758); National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania; Plan Estatal de Investigacion (refs. FPA2015-65150-C3-1-P, -2-P and -3-P, (MINECO/FEDER)), Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence program (MINECO), Red Consolider MultiDark, (ref. FPA2017-90566-REDC, MINECO) and Prometeo and ...