Km3net
Encyclopedia
KM3NeT, an acronym for Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, is a future European research
infrastructure which will be located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea
. It will host the next generation neutrino telescope
in the form of a water Cherenkov detector
with an instrumented volume of more than five cubic kilometre.
KM3NeT will search for neutrino
s from distant astrophysical sources like supernova remnant
s, gamma-ray bursts, supernova
e or colliding stars and will be a powerful tool in the search for dark matter
in the universe. An array of tenthousands of optical sensors will detect the faint light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos and the Earth. The facility will also house instrumentation for other sciences like marine biology
, oceanography
and geophysics
for long term and on-line monitoring of the deep sea environment and the sea bottom at depth of several kilometres.
In 2010, a design study of the infrastructure was concluded with a Technical Design Report, which was made public in 2011. It is anticipated that the neutrino telescope will contain in the order of 12000 pressure resistant glass spheres attached to about 300 detection units with a height of almost one kilometer. Each glass sphere will contain 31 photomultiplier tubes
and will be connected to shore via a high-bandwidth optical network. At the shore, a farm of computers will perform the first data filter in the search for the signal of cosmic neutrinos.
For the design of the neutrino detector, KM3NeT builds on the experience of three pilot projects in the Mediterranean Sea: the ANTARES
detector, the NEMO
experiment and the NESTOR Project
. ANTARES was completed on 30 May 2008, and is the largest neutrino telescope in the northern hemisphere.
In the southern hemisphere, at Antarctica, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has recently been completed. Together, IceCube and KM3NeT will view the full sky and form a global neutrino observatory.
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
infrastructure which will be located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. It will host the next generation neutrino telescope
Neutrino astronomy
Neutrino astronomy is the branch of astronomy that observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors in special observatories. Nuclear reactions in stars and supernova explosions produce very large numbers of neutrinos, a very few of which may be detected by a neutrino telescope...
in the form of a water Cherenkov detector
Cherenkov detector
A Cherenkov detector is a particle detector using the mass-dependent threshold energy of Cherenkov radiation. This allows a discrimination between a lighter particle and a heavier particle ....
with an instrumented volume of more than five cubic kilometre.
KM3NeT will search for neutrino
Neutrino
A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected...
s from distant astrophysical sources like supernova remnant
Supernova remnant
A supernova remnant is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova. The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion, and the interstellar material it sweeps up and shocks along the way.There are two...
s, gamma-ray bursts, supernova
Supernova
A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...
e or colliding stars and will be a powerful tool in the search for dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
in the universe. An array of tenthousands of optical sensors will detect the faint light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos and the Earth. The facility will also house instrumentation for other sciences like marine biology
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
, oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
and geophysics
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
for long term and on-line monitoring of the deep sea environment and the sea bottom at depth of several kilometres.
In 2010, a design study of the infrastructure was concluded with a Technical Design Report, which was made public in 2011. It is anticipated that the neutrino telescope will contain in the order of 12000 pressure resistant glass spheres attached to about 300 detection units with a height of almost one kilometer. Each glass sphere will contain 31 photomultiplier tubes
Photomultiplier
Photomultiplier tubes , members of the class of vacuum tubes, and more specifically phototubes, are extremely sensitive detectors of light in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum...
and will be connected to shore via a high-bandwidth optical network. At the shore, a farm of computers will perform the first data filter in the search for the signal of cosmic neutrinos.
For the design of the neutrino detector, KM3NeT builds on the experience of three pilot projects in the Mediterranean Sea: the ANTARES
ANTARES (telescope)
ANTARES is the name of a neutrino detector residing 2.5 km under the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Toulon, France. It is designed to be used as a directional Neutrino Telescope to locate and observe neutrino flux from cosmic origins in the direction of the Southern Hemisphere of the...
detector, the NEMO
Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory
The Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory is an international collaboration of scientists searching for neutrinoless double beta decay. The observation of neutrinoless double beta decay would be evidence that neutrinos are Majorana particles and could be used to measure the neutrino mass...
experiment and the NESTOR Project
Nestor Project
The NESTOR Project is an international scientific collaboration whose target is the deployment of a neutrino telescope on the sea floor off Pylos, Greece.-Neutrino:...
. ANTARES was completed on 30 May 2008, and is the largest neutrino telescope in the northern hemisphere.
In the southern hemisphere, at Antarctica, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has recently been completed. Together, IceCube and KM3NeT will view the full sky and form a global neutrino observatory.