The prototype detection unit of the KM3NeT detector (original) (raw)

Deep sea tests of a prototype of the KM3NeT digital optical module

2014

The first prototype of a photo-detection unit of the future KM3NeT neutrino telescope has been deployed in the deep waters of the Mediterranean Sea. This digital optical module has a novel design with a very large photocathode area segmented by the use of 31 three inch photomultiplier tubes. It has been integrated in the ANTARES detector for in-situ testing and validation. This paper reports on the first months of data taking and rate measurements. The analysis results highlight the capabilities of the new module design in terms of background suppression and signal recognition. The directionality of the optical module enables the recognition of multiple Cherenkov photons from the same 40 K decay and the localisation bioluminescent activity in the neighbourhood. The single unit can cleanly identify atmospheric muons and provide sensitivity to the muon arrival directions.

NaNet3: The on-shore readout and slow-control board for the KM3NeT-Italia underwater neutrino telescope

EPJ Web of Conferences

The KM3NeT-Italia underwater neutrino detection unit, the tower, consists of 14 floors. Each floor supports 6 Optical Modules containing front-end electronics needed to digitize the PMT signal, format and transmit the data and 2 hydrophones that reconstruct in real-time the position of Optical Modules, for a maximum tower throughput of more than 600 MB/s. All floor data are collected by the Floor Control Module (FCM) board and transmitted by optical bidirectional virtual point-to-point connections to the onshore laboratory, each FCM needing an onshore counterpart as communication endpoint. In this contribution we present NaNet 3 , an onshore readout board based on Altera Stratix V GX FPGA able to manage multiple FCM data channels with a capability of 800 Mbps each. The design is a NaNet customization for the KM3NeT-Italia experiment, adding support in its I/O interface for a synchronous link protocol with deterministic latency at physical level and for a Time Division Multiplexing protocol at data level.

NESTOR: A neutrino particle astrophysics underwater laboratory for the Mediterranean

Nuclear Physics B - Proceedings Supplements, 1994

A new program for an underwater neutrino astrophysics laboratory to be located in die international waters off the Southwest of Greece, near the town of Pylos has now been funded for the initial stage. In the last 2 years a group of physicists from Greece and Russia have carried out two demonstration experiments in 4km deep water, counting muons and verifying the adequacy of the deep sea site. Plans are presented for a 100,000 m 2 high energy neutrino detector composed of a hexagon of hexagonal towers, with 1176 optical detector units. A progress report is given and the physics potential of a single tower with 168 phototubes (currently under construction) is described.

Atmospheric Neutrinos Detected with the First KM3NeT Detection Units of ARCA and ORCA

2019

KM3NeT is constructing two next-generation underwater Cherenkov detectors in the deep Mediterranean Sea. The ARCA detector is optimised for TeV-PeV neutrino astronomy, and the smaller and more-densely instrumented ORCA detector is optimised for oscillation research with few-GeV atmospheric neutrinos. The first detection units of both ARCA as well as ORCA have been deployed and are taking data. In this contribution, an analysis to detect atmospheric neutrinos in the first data of a single detection unit of ORCA and two detection units of ARCA is presented. With ORCA, a sample of 77 neutrino candidates in 125.3 days of livetime is extracted. A good agreement with expectations from Monte-Carlo simulations is found. With ARCA, 6 neutrino candidates are identified in 53.2 days of livetime.

The new CLBv4 for the KM3NeT Neutrino Telescope

EPJ Web of Conferences, 2019

The KM3NeT collaboration aims at the construction of a deepsea neutrino observatory in the Mediterranean Sea equipped with thousands of glass spheres, the so-called Digital Optical Modules, each of which contains 31 photomultipliers of small photocathode area. These devices will be used for the detection of the Cherenkov light induced by charged particles produced by the interaction of neutrinos with matter inside or in the vicinity of the KM3NeT detector. The signal acquired by each photomultiplier is sent to a Time to Digital Converter which is part of a Central Logic Board. The Time to Digital Converter resolution is 1 ns and the White Rabbit technology is used to guarantee time synchronization between the optical modules. Due to the large volume to be instrumented by KM3NeT, a cost reduction of the different systems is important so different versions of the Central Logic Board have been designed. The newest version was designed also to also reduce the phase noise in the main clo...