* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Antares telescope

Blobrana · L

ANTARES neutrino telescope

Blobrana · L

RE: Antares telescope

Blobrana · L

ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

Blobrana · L

RE: Antares telescope

Blobrana · L

Antares scrute les fonds marins de tous ses yeux pour mieux comprendre l'Univers
La construction du premier télescope sous-marin à neutrinos jamais réalisé vient de s'achever. Depuis le début du mois de juin, les deux dernières lignes de détection d'Antares scrutent le fond de la Méditerranée à la recherche de neutrinos d'origine cosmique. Ce sont désormais 12 lignes de détection qui cherchent à capter ces particules élémentaires, témoins des phénomènes les plus violents de l'Univers. Cet événement récompense les efforts de la collaboration européenne(1) Antares, en particulier ceux du CEA-Irfu, de l'IN2P3-CNRS, de l'INSU-CNRS et de l'Ifremer, acteurs majeurs dans cette aventure.

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Title: The ANTARES Neutrino Telescope: First results
Authors: Thierry Pradier

The Antares Collaboration is completing the deployment of a 12 lines underwater detector 2500m deep in the Mediterranean Sea, dedicated to high energy neutrino astronomy. Starting with the rst line in 2006, 10 lines were continuously recording data by the end of 2007, which allow us to reconstruct downward-going cosmic muons, and search for the rst upward-going -induced muons. Calibration topics will be described and preliminary results presented.

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Blobrana · L

It could be the world's most elaborate marine biology probe - and it was created by particle physicists.
Spanning 10,000 square metres of the Mediterranean seabed, the Antares telescope is designed to tell us about the cosmos by picking up signs of elusive particles called neutrinos, which fly thousands of light years through space. To physicists' surprise, however, the underwater particle detector is also providing a unique glimpse of marine life.
It is now being adapted to distinguish between different marine species and monitor the sea's health.

"The deep ocean is actually less well understood than outer space" - Antares team member John Carr at the University of the Mediterranean (UM) in Marseille, France.

When complete, Antares will consist of 12 electrical cables sticking up for 350 metres above the seabed, of which eight are now in place. Each one is loaded with light detectors called photomultiplier tubes.

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The Antares telescope takes its first look at the heavens

The first detection line of the Antares neutrino telescope, lying under 2,500 meters of water, was connected by Ifremer's remotely operated robot Victor 6000 to the onshore station at La Seyne-sur-Mer (Var) on Thursday 2 March at 12:11. Several hours later, Antares took its first look at the heavens and detected its first muons. The link marked the effective birth of the Antares detector, the first deep water high energy neutrino telescope in the northern hemisphere. The event rewards ten years of work by around twenty European laboratories, including CEA/Dapnia and the CNRS/IN2P3 laboratories, who initiated the project in 1996.

The Antares telescope is a neutrino detector which has two main goals: high-energy astronomy and the search for dark matter.

Neutrinos hardly interact with matter at all. The only way to detect them is by using huge detectors which are shielded from the cosmic radiation that constantly bombards any terrestrial site, resulting in major continuous background noise. Located under the sea off Toulon (Var), Antares is protected from this radiation by the natural shielding provided by 2,500 metres depth of seawater. Photodetectors, the eyes of Antares, use a large volume of seawater to detect the very faintly luminous trails produced by muons coming up from below. The muons are produced by the interaction with the Earth's crust of neutrinos which have passed through the Earth. They can be detected because of the total darkness reigning at such immense depths. So Antares looks right through the Earth and observes the skies of the southern hemisphere, including the galactic centre, which is the seat of intensely energetic phenomena.

The photodetectors are grouped in threes along umbilical cables which are 450 meters high, which carry signals as well as energy. A total of 900 such “eyes”, distributed along 12 lines covering an area of around 200 m x 200 m on the sea floor, will be scrutinising the Universe by the end of 2007. Each line is connected to a junction box, which is linked by a 40-kilometer long electro-optical cable to the onshore station at the Institut Michel Pacha in La Seyne-sur-Mer. The installation of the Antares telescope benefited from Ifremer's logistics and expertise.

In addition, Antares forms a permanent multidisciplinary submarine scientific facility, recording both oceanographic data, including observation of the deep sea marine environment and bioluminescent phenomena, as well as geophysical data: for instance, a seismograph has been recording earthquakes for the past year.

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