Speaker
Annarita Margiotta
(Universita e INFN (IT))
Description
More than one hundred years after the first observations of cosmic rays, problems connected with their origin and propagation have not been completely solved.
Astrophysical objects such as Supernova Remnants, Active Galactic Nuclei, Quasars and Microquasars, which are likely sources of high energy cosmic rays and gamma rays, could emit high energy neutrinos as well. The detection and the study of their properties would shed light on production and acceleration mechanisms acting inside possible cosmic accelerators.
Measuring the arrival direction and energy of such neutrinos requires very massive targets, whose size is far beyond those of present, conventional underground detectors. A possible solution is the use of the sea as a Cerenkov target-detector.
ANTARES is the first undersea neutrino telescope. It has been built in the Mediterranean Sea by a large European collaboration and has been in data taking since 2008, demonstrating the feasibility of this technique.
The detection principle, the sensitivity of the experiment and the results obtained so far will be presented.
Primary author
Annarita Margiotta
(Universita e INFN (IT))
