Long term biological developments in water Cherenkov detector media

Abstract

Abstract Fourteen years ago, studies on bacteria growing in clean water were made in order to assess the hazard imposed by a possible expansion of bacteria population in the water tanks of the Pierre Auger Observatory Cherenkov detectors. In 1999 TANGO Array, a reduced-size unitary cell, composed of four water Cherenkov detectors, was constructed at the TANDAR campus of the Atomic Energy Commission, in Buenos Aires, to be used as a working model of the proposed surface array. TANGO Array ran for one year observing energy, intensity, and arrival directions of cosmic rays at sea level. Nine years after it was decommissioned, the water tanks configuring the Cherenkov detectors are still kept closed. In May 2009 water and liner samples from these tanks were collected to determine eventual long term bacteria growth in the internal detector environment, which is very similar to those of the detectors installed in the Malargue Site. In the present note we report the results of the bacteriological study performed on the samples obtained from the TANGO Array detector tanks. Cultivable, long time surviving, bacterial species were identified, both in the water mass and on the liner surface, and the light transmission in water at the relevant Cherenkov wavelength was studied. An upper limit of possible interferences caused by bacteria is estimated.