ANTARES proposal: Towards a large scale high energy cosmic neutrino undersea detector

Abstract

The ANTARES collaboration propose to observe High Energy Cosmic Neutrinos using a Deep Sea Cherenkov detector. The sky survey with high energy neutrinos is complementary to the observations with photons. It is expected that this will shed a new light on the understanding of the origin of cosmics rays, on galactic and extra galactic sources. In this document, we will elaborate on the potential interest of such a study for Astrophysicists and Particle Physicists. For Oceanologists participating in the collaboration, the main goal is a long term measurement of environmental parameters in the deep sea. We propose to explore the possibility of a km-scale detector to be installed in a deep site in the Mediterranean sea, for which a broad collaboration will be needed. A variety of technical problems have to be solved. Strong constraints coming from the deep sea environment and the lack of accessibility, require sea science engineering expertise. For items such as detector deployment in deep water, data transmission through optical cables, corrosion, bio-fouling of optical modules, positioning, we have found technical support from collaborators and partners which have experience in this field (COM, CSTN, CTME, IFREMER, France Telecom Cables, INSU-CNRS...). We will test the sea engineering part of a detector including test deployments close to the Toulon coast (France) where technical support is available and where several sites at depths down to 2500 m are easily accessible. During the same time, issues connected to the accomplishment of a large scale detector and the selection of an optimum site will be addressed. We propose to build and install a demonstrator (a fully equipped 3-dimensional test array) the design of which can be extended to a km^3 scale detector. We plan to reach this goal within the next 2 years.