1. M.Bou-Cabo, J.A. Martínez.-Mora on behalf of the ANTARES Collaboration
The ANTARES neutrino telescope:
Performance one year after its completion
M.Bou-Cabo, J.A. Martínez.-Mora on behalf of the ANTARES Collaboration
Institut d’Investigació per a la Gestió Integrada de Zones Costaneres. Universitat Politècnica de València
Introduction:
ANTARES ( Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental Research ) is a high energy neutrino undersea telescope, with an effective area of 0.1 km2 . The apparatus consists of an array of photomultipliers arranged in the sea bed at a depth of 2400 m. ANTARES detector is located at 40 km south of Toulon (France) and allows a Sky coverage of 3.6 π sr. A 42 km long electro-optical cable connects the detector to the shore station on the beach of La-Seyne-Sur-Mer.
Detection principle.
Aims &Results
ANTARES is based on the detection of Cherenkov light with photomultipliers arranged in a ·3-D array sea at a depth of 2400m. The detector consists of 12 flexible strings, each containing 25 storeys.
Each storey contains 3 optical modules looking at an angle of 45 degree below the horizon high efficiency for tracks between the zenith direction and the horizon, and minimized effects due to biofouling. The photomultipliers are sensitive to a single photon (with a quantum efficiency of about 25% in the blue).
ANTARES aims to open a new field of scientific exploration of the universe. Neutrino detection provides a novel tool to explore high-energy phenomena in astrophysical objects.
The neutrinos escape without interacting in the material surrounding sources and travel to the earth without any deviation... and much less absorbtion than the photons of the same energy.from the galactic magnetic fields.
Physics capabilities:
Astronomy (Point like sources, transient sources)
Neutrino diffuse flux and Astrophysical and atmospheric muons
Dark matter search
Other: Neutrino oscillations, Magnetic monopoles, Nuclearites, ..
Acoustic neutrino detection studies
Calibration and Instrumentation.
The relative positioning of the detector is obtained using a high frequency acoustic network (around 60 kHz) giving the 3D position of hydrophones placed along the line and a set of tiltmeter-compass sensors giving the local tilt angles of each optical module. The shape of each string is reconstructed by performing a global fit based on these informations
The relative time synchronisation of the optical modules is obtained by;
-a precise monitoring of the lengths of the clock optical fibers
   -a measurement of the arrival time...
   -the detection in coincidence of 40K decay (natural component of the sea water) and of downgoing atmospheric muons.
Receiver hydrophone
Led
Beacon
Optical
modules
Flux (upper limits) of ANTARES for some candidate sources, compared with other experiments.
Skymap plot witht he 94 events founds in the analysis
Limit on neutrino flux (E > 10 GeV) (left) and neutrino induced muon flux (E > 1 GeV) (right) coming from the Sun obtained by ANTARES with the data of the 5-Line period in comparison to the expected flux from neutralino annihilations in mSugra models.