Moon shadow observation with ANTARES and KM3NeT neutrino telescope

Matteo Sanguineti,Carla Distefano,A Capone,G De Bonis,C Perrina,I Di Palma

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201611606004

Matteo Sanguineti, Carla Distefano + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201611606004

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Abstract

The ANTARES detector is the largest neutrino telescope currently in operation in the Northern Hemisphere. The search for point-like neutrino sources is one of the main goals of ANTARES, so a reliable way to evaluate the detector pointing performance is needed. The Moon shadow measurement, i.e. the deficit in the atmospheric muon flux in the direction of the Moon induced by absorption of cosmic rays, allows the estimation of the angular resolution and the pointing accuracy. The 2007–2012 ANTARES data set shows a significance of Moon shadowing around 3σ. This is the first measurement of the ANTARES angular resolution and absolute pointing for atmospheric muons using a celestial calibration source. The same approach has been used to estimate also the expected Moon shadow significance with the KM3NeT-ARCA detector, the future cubic kilometre scale detector that will be installed in Sicily.

Highlights

Neutrino telescopes have opened a new era of observation of the Universe
The ANTARES neutrino telescope [1] is designed for the identification of point-like sources of high energy cosmic neutrinos, like starburst galaxies, GRBs, Supernova remnants and AGNs
Following the experience from the ANTARES experiment, the KM3NeT collaboration has started the construction of the generation deep-sea neutrino telescope

Summary

Introduction

Weakly interacting particles that can cross dense matter or radiation fields without being absorbed for cosmological distances. They can provide unperturbed information on the far Universe and the interior of astrophysical sources. The ANTARES neutrino telescope [1] is designed for the identification of point-like sources of high energy cosmic neutrinos, like starburst galaxies, GRBs, Supernova remnants and AGNs. Following the experience from the ANTARES experiment, the KM3NeT collaboration has started the construction of the generation deep-sea neutrino telescope. Following the experience from the ANTARES experiment, the KM3NeT collaboration has started the construction of the generation deep-sea neutrino telescope It will be a cubic kilometre scale detector with several hundreds of detection units. In this work we exploit this technique to measure the ANTARES angular resolution for atmospheric down-going muons and we show the expected performances of the KM3NeT-ARCA detector

Detection of the Moon shadow with ANTARES

Simulation of the Moon shadow with KM3NeT-ARCA

Conclusions