The ANTARES neutrino telescope: a status report

TL;DR

The ANTARES neutrino telescope, located deep underwater off France, is under construction and aims to detect high-energy neutrinos using Cherenkov light, with initial data from 5 lines providing insights into detector performance and cosmic ray muons.

Contribution

This report details the current status of the ANTARES neutrino telescope, including its construction progress, initial data collection, and environmental stability assessments.

Findings

Initial detector stability confirmed from instrumentation line data

Detection of downward-going cosmic ray muons demonstrated detector functionality

Progress towards full 12-line array expected early 2008

Abstract

ANTARES is a large volume neutrino telescope currently under construction off La Seyne-sur-mer, France, at 2475m depth. Neutrino telescopes aim at detecting neutrinos as a new probe for a sky study at energies greater than 1 TeV. The detection principle relies on the observation, using photomultipliers, of the Cherenkov light emitted by charged leptons induced by neutrino interactions in the surrounding detector medium. Since late January 2007, the ANTARES detector consists of 5 lines, comprising 75 optical detectors each, connected to the shore via a 40 km long undersea cable. The data from these lines not only allow an extensive study of the detector properties but also the reconstruction of downward going cosmic ray muons and the search for the first upward going neutrino induced muons.The operation of these lines follows on from that of the ANTARES instrumentation line, which has provided data for more than a year on the detector stability and the environmental conditions. The full 12 line detector is planned to be fully operational early 2008.