SciPost Submission Page
Status and First Results from the KM3NeT neutrino telescope
by Evangelia Drakopoulou on behalf of the KM3NeT Collaboration
This is not the latest submitted version.
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Evangelia Drakopoulou |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | scipost_202411_00008v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | Nov. 5, 2024, 8:26 a.m. |
| Submitted by: | Drakopoulou, Evangelia |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics Proceedings |
| Proceedings issue: | 22nd International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2024) |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Experimental |
Abstract
KM3NeT is a distributed research infrastructure under construction in abyssal sites of the Mediterranean Sea that hosts two underwater neutrino telescopes: ARCA, located off- shore Portopalo di Capo Passero in Italy and ORCA, located offshore Toulon in France. Both telescopes employ the same photon detection technology but are opitmised according to different physics cases. ARCA is targeted to the detection of neutrinos with energies in the TeV-PeV range coming from astrophysical sources, while ORCA aims at studying the atmospheric neutrino oscillations at energies of a few GeV. In this contribution, the status of ARCA and ORCA is presented and the results obtained using data taken with the first detection units are discussed.
Current status:
Reports on this Submission
Report #1 by Subir Sarkar (Referee 1) on 2025-3-20 (Contributed Report)
Strengths
Reports results obtained using data taken with the first detection units of ARCA and ORCA, e.g.
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Highlights deficit of ~40% in simulations of atmospheric muons in the TeV-energy range with respect to the data obtained with both ORCA6 and ARCA6
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Confirms seeing Moon & Sun atmospheric muon shadow with expected resolutionusing ORCA6
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Reports atmospheric neutrino flux measurements with ORCA6 in the 1-100 GeV range, in good agreement with standard Honda model as well as with pevious experiments
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Shows expected sensitivity to astrophysical neutrinos of ARCA6, compared to previous experiments.
Weaknesses
Report
For example, it is reported that ORCA6 data (Feb 2020 to Nov 2021) on the Moon and Sun shadowing of cosmic ray produced atmospheric muons was used to validate the understanding of detector positioning, orientation and time calibration and the accuracy of event direction reconstruction. The Moon and Sun shadows were seen at 4.2σ and 6.2σ - agreeing with the prediction of 0.53 degrees from simulations. This has already been published in a refereed journal, accordingly it is neither necessary nor appropriate to ask for further details here.
This is a topical report from a running experiment; it is succint and well-written, so may be published.
Requested changes
If the author so wishes, they may add as a postscript the recent announcement of the detection of a muon with an estimated energy of 120 PeV - given the wide interest this has generated in the community.
Recommendation
Publish (surpasses expectations and criteria for this Journal; among top 10%)