Position calibration for the future KM3NeT detector

✍ Scribed by Holger Motz

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 384 KB
• Volume: 623
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-9002
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2010.03.016

✦ Synopsis

Deep-sea neutrino telescopes consist of an array of photomultipliers to detect Cherenkov light emitted by neutrino-induced muons and particle showers in the surrounding sea water, allowing for reconstruction of the neutrino direction from position and timing of the Cherenkov photons. Since the photomultipliers are in most cases mounted on flexible structures, e.g. lines, and move with the sea current, a positioning system is required to determine the precise location of each sensor. The positioning system of the ANTARES neutrino telescope is based on acoustic triangulation using hydrophones mounted along the lines in combination with tiltmeters and compasses and provides centimetre precision alignment. For the future KM3NeT detector an Optical Module with integrated Piezo sensors for position calibration is proposed as a cost-effective solution. The performance of this system is tested with several sensors of the AMADEUS project, which is integrated in ANTARES to study the background for acoustic detection of highest energy neutrinos.