The ANTARES and Km3net Neutrino Telescopes: Status and Outlook for Acoustic Studies
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
EPJ Web of Conferences 216, 01004 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201921601004 ARENA 2018 The ANTARES and KM3NeT neutrino telescopes: Status and outlook for acoustic studies Véronique Van Elewyck1,2, for the ANTARES and KM3NeT Collaborations 1APC, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/Irfu, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France 2Institut Universitaire de France, 75005 Paris, France Abstract. The ANTARES detector has been operating continuously since 2007 in the Mediterranean Sea, demonstrating the feasibility of an undersea neutrino telescope. Its superior angular resolution in the reconstruction of neutrino events of all flavors results in unprecedented sensitivity for neutrino source searches in the southern sky at TeV en- ergies, so that valuable constraints can be set on the origin of the cosmic neutrino flux discovered by the IceCube detector. The next generation KM3NeT neutrino telescope is now under construction, featuring two detectors with the same technology but different granularity: ARCA designed to search for high energy (TeV-PeV) cosmic neutrinos and ORCA designed to study atmospheric neutrino oscillations at the GeV scale, focusing on the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy. Both detectors use acoustic devices for positioning calibration, and provide testbeds for acoustic neutrino detection. 1 Introduction Neutrinos have long been proposed as a complementary probe to cosmic rays and photons to explore the high-energy (HE) sky, as they can emerge from dense media and travel across cosmological dis- tances without being deflected by magnetic fields nor absorbed by inter- and intra-galactic matter and radiation. HE (>TeV) neutrinos are expected to be emitted in a wide range of astrophysical objects. Along with gamma-rays, they originate from the decay of π’s and K’s produced in the interactions of accelerated protons and nuclei with matter and radiation in the vicinity of the source. Since the first observation of HE neutrinos of astrophysical origin in the IceCube telescope [1] in 2013, neutrino as- tronomy has established itself as part of the "multimessenger paradigm" for the study of astrophysical sources, along with gravitational waves. The unambiguous identification of cosmic neutrino sources however requires larger data samples, coupled with improved angular resolution and a full sky cover- age of neutrino telescopes. In this context, neutrino telescopes installed in the Mediterranean Sea play a major role in comple- menting IceCube dataset and sky coverage, while also benefiting from the optical properties of seawa- ter to achieve unprecedented pointing and reconstruction performances. This contribution presents the status of the currently operating detector ANTARES, along with its main scientific contributions, and describes the next-generation detector KM3NeT, now under construction off the French and Italian coasts. As of special interest for this conference, a short description of the acoustic instrumentation implemented in ANTARES and KM3NeT, and its possible use for neutrino detection, will be provided as well. e-mail: [email protected] V. Van Elewyck acknowledges the financial support from LabEx UnivEarthS at Sorbonne Paris Cité (ANR-10-LABX-0023). © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). EPJ Web of Conferences 216, 01004 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201921601004 ARENA 2018 Figure 1. Left: The ANTARES detector configuration, showing the 12 lines hosting standard storeys with optical modules (in black), as well as the instrumented line (IL07). The red storeys on L12 and IL07 correspond to the AMADEUS acoustic detection modules. Right: Sketch of the KM3NeT detector, also showing two typical events illustrating the track and shower topologies (see text). 2 ANTARES status and main results The ANTARES (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental Research) detec- tor [2] is the largest neutrino telescope operating undersea. Its deployment at a depth of 2475m in the Mediterranean Sea, about 40 km off the French coast near Toulon (France), was completed in May 2008. It consists of an array of 12 mooring lines, with an inter-line spacing of about 70 m, connected to a junction box which distributes the electrical power and transmits the data to shore through an electro-optical cable (see Fig. (1)). Each line (but one) supports 25 storeys made of triplets of 10-inch photomultipliers (PMTs) enclosed in glass spheres, oriented at 45◦ downwards. The detector com- prises a total of 885 optical modules (OMs), corresponding to an instrumented volume of about 0,015 km3. ANTARES records the Cherenkov light emitted along the path of charged particles produced in the interaction of a HE neutrino in the vicinity of the detector. Events are classified in two broad topology classes (see also the right panel of Fig. (1)): track-like events are associated to νµ (or ντ) charged-current interactions producing a muon that crosses the detector, while cascade-like events correspond to all other (charged- and neutral-current) interaction channels, where only hadronic and electromagnetic showers are produced. The time, position and amplitude of the recorded hits are used to reconstruct the energy and the arrival direction of the incident neutrino. The optical properties of sea water allow excellent timing information for the detected light signals, yieding a very good angular resolution for the reconstructed direction of detected neutrino candidates for all event topologies ( 0.4 for tracks above 10 TeV, and 3 for showers). ◦ ∼ ◦ Such reconstruction performances also rely on the detector accuracy in the measurement of the hits arrival time ( ns) and position ( 10 cm). Time calibration is performed by means of an in- ∼ ∼ situ array of laser and LED beacons. The position of the OMs is continuously monitored thanks to a high-frequency long-baseline acoustic network comprising fixed emittors deployed on the seabed, and hydrophones distributed along the detector lines, whose position is determined by triangulation based on travel time measurement of acoustic waves. A tiltmeter and a compass enclosed in the local electronics module of each floor are used for the reconstruction of the exact orientation of the floor. Complementary oceanographic measurements are performed on a dedicated instrumented line, in particular to retrieve the sound velocity and to measure the sea current (O(few cm/s)). 2 EPJ Web of Conferences 216, 01004 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201921601004 ARENA 2018 −5 ] 10 -1 ANTARES 2007-15 sensitivity s ANTARES 2007-15 sensitivity (E < 100 TeV) ν -2 ANTARES 2007-15 limits (candidate list) ANTARES 2007-15 limits (candidate list for HESE events) ANTARES 2007-15 limits (1 declination bands) −6 ° 10 IceCube 7 years sensitivity [ApJ 835(2017)2 151] IceCube 3 years MESE sensitivity (E < 100 TeV) [ApJ 824(2016)2 L28] ν [GeV cm IceCube 7 years limits [ApJ 835(2017)2 151] 90%CL −7 Φ 10 2 E 10−8 10−9 10−10 −1 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 sinδ Figure 1. Left: The ANTARES detector configuration, showing the 12 lines hosting standard storeys with Figure 2. Left: ANTARES sensitivity (dashed line) and 90% confidence upper limits (dots) for the point sources optical modules (in black), as well as the instrumented line (IL07). The red storeys on L12 and IL07 correspond as a function of sin(declination), together with the IceCube point source results [3]. Right: 2D log-likelihood to the AMADEUS acoustic detection modules. Right: Sketch of the KM3NeT detector, also showing two typical scan of the diffuse cosmic flux normalization and spectral index, showing 68% and 90% contours as well as the events illustrating the track and shower topologies (see text). respective ANTARES and IceCube analyses best-fit points [4]. 2 ANTARES status and main results The good angular resolution achieved for reconstructed cascade events in seawater allowed for the inclusion of this topology in ANTARES latest searches for point-like sources. Assuming a flavor- The ANTARES (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental Research) detec- uniform flux of neutrinos at the source with an E 2 spectrum, a cascade-to-track ratio of 3:10 is tor [2] is the largest neutrino telescope operating undersea. Its deployment at a depth of 2475m in the − expected at the detector. The most comprehensive analysis to date [3] uses a sample of 7629 tracks and Mediterranean Sea, about 40 km off the French coast near Toulon (France), was completed in May 180 cascades collected between early 2007 and the end of 2015, corresponding to a livetime of 2424 2008. It consists of an array of 12 mooring lines, with an inter-line spacing of about 70 m, connected days. It comprises a full-sky unbinned blind search, directional searches from known astrophysical to a junction box which distributes the electrical power and transmits the data to shore through an objects and IceCube HE events, a search restricted to a 20 region around the Galactic Center (GC), electro-optical cable (see Fig. (1)). Each line (but one) supports 25 storeys made of triplets of 10-inch ∼ ◦ and a study of Sagittarius A* as an extended source. None of these searches has reported significant photomultipliers (PMTs) enclosed in glass spheres, oriented at 45◦ downwards. The detector com- excess over background expectations. As illustrated in Fig. (2) (left), the upper limits on the neutrino prises a total of 885 optical modules (OMs), corresponding to an instrumented volume of about 0,015 flux derived from this study are the tightest for a large fraction of the Southern Sky, especially at km3. energies < 100 TeV, where they complement those obtained by IceCube. ANTARES records the Cherenkov light emitted along the path of charged particles produced in Both track and cascade events have also been exploited for the latest search for an all-flavour the interaction of a HE neutrino in the vicinity of the detector.