KM3NeT

The Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, is a European research infrastructure located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. It hosts the next-generation neutrino telescope with water Cherenkov detectors.

When completed, KM3NeT will have a total instrumented volume of several cubic kilometres distributed over three locations in the Mediterranean: KM3NeT-Fr (offshore Toulon, France), KM3NeT-It (offshore Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily, Italy) and KM3NeT-Gr (offshore Pylos, Peloponnese, Greece). The KM3NeT project continues the work done for the neutrino telescope ANTARES operated offshore the coast of France between 2008 and 2022.

Using KM3NeT, scientists search for neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources like supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae or colliding stars. The telescope is a powerful tool in the search for dark matter in the universe. Arrays of thousands of optical sensor modules detect the faint Cherenkov light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos and the water or rock in the vicinity of the detector. The position and direction of the optical modules and the time of arrival of the light on the photomultipliers inside is recorded with high precision. The trajectories of particles are reconstructed from these measurements. The research infrastructure also houses instrumentation for other sciences like marine biology, oceanography and geophysics for long-term and online monitoring of the deep-sea environment and the sea bottom at depths of several kilometres.

The KM3NeT 2.0 project is realising two large detectors, ARCA at KM3NeT-It and ORCA at KM3NeT-Fr. The ARCA detector is the cubic kilometre sized telescope searching for distant neutrino-sources. The ORCA detector is optimised for the measurement of the properties of the neutrino itself. In that sense, ORCA is a neutrino particle physics detector. Details can be found in the Letter of Intent.^[1]

The oversight, governance and management of the implementation and operation of KM3NeT is conducted by an international collaboration. The KM3NeT community consists of about 250 scientists, along with engineers and technicians.