Abstract

KM3NeT/ARCA is a European deep-sea research infrastructure that will host a neutrino telescope with a volume of several cubic kilometers at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The telescope will search for galactic and extragalactic neutrinos from astrophysical sources like gamma ray bursts, super-novae or colliding stars. The analyses performed in large water Cherenkov detectors rely upon the reconstruction of the muon direction and energy, and consequently, those of the neutrino. The estimation of the muon energy is also critical for the differentiation of muons from neutrinos originating from astrophysical sources from muons and neutrinos that have been generated in the atmosphere and constitute the detector background. The energy is derived from the detection of the Cherenkov light produced by the muons that are created during the charged current interactions of neutrinos in or in the vicinity of the detector. We describe a method to determine the muon and neutrino energy employing a Neural Network. An energy resolution of about 0.29 has been achieved for muons at the TeV range.

Highlights

  • One of the aims of the KM3NeT collaboration is to deploy a neutrino telescope of several cubic kilometers at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea in order to search for neutrinos of galactic and extragalactic origin

  • These PMTs will detect the Cherenkov light emitted by charged particles which are produced during the neutrino interactions with the Earth or the sea water

  • We describe a method to derive muon energy from the light collected along its passage through the detector volume

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Summary

Introduction

One of the aims of the KM3NeT collaboration is to deploy a neutrino telescope of several cubic kilometers at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea in order to search for neutrinos of galactic and extragalactic origin. Each optical module consists of a 17 inches glass sphere with 31 photomultipliers (PMTs) These PMTs will detect the Cherenkov light emitted by charged particles which are produced during the neutrino interactions with the Earth or the sea water. Photons due to bioluminescence and 40K decays in sea water are detected by the PMTs originating an optical background. In addition to random coincidences, a rate of 500 Hz due to genuine coincidences from 40K decay has taken into account

Track direction reconstruction
Energy estimation
Neural network
Description of the neural network input variables for the energy estimation
Results on muon and neutrino energy reconstruction
Findings
Conclusions
Full Text
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