Km3NeT, a Deep Sea Challenge for Neutrino Astronomy

Abstract

The groups presently pursuing neutrino telescope projects in the Mediterranean Sea; ANTARES, NEMO, and NESTOR, have formed the new KM3NeT consortium to study the construction of a cubic kilometre-scale neutrino telescope for the Northern hemisphere. This challenging project will require the installation of thousands of photon detectors with their related electronics and calibration systems several kilometres below the sea level. The realization of this project will provide the scientific community with a very powerful instrument to study many astrophysical objects, including supernova explosions, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts and possibly also dark matter. The construction of this detector will require the solution of technological problems common to many deep submarine installations, and will help pave the way for other deep-sea research facilities. Aspects of the KM3NeT project related to deep-sea infrastructure, deployment and operation are reviewed.