Design Study

In Februray 2006, the Design Study for the infrastructure, funded by the EU FP6 framework, started. The primary objective of the design study is the development of a cost-effective design for a cubic-kilometre sized deep-sea infrastructure housing a neutrino telescope with unprecedented neutrino flux sensitivity at TeV energies and providing long-term access for deep-sea research.

In April 2008 the Conceptual Design Report for the KM3NeT infrastructure has been made public. Click here for a pdf version.

The combination of the relatively low flux of high energy cosmic neutrinos and their weak interaction with matter implies the need for a very massive detector. The solution pursued is to instrument a large volue of deep-sea water with a three-dimensional array of photo-sensors detecting the weak Cherenkov light produced by charged particles emerging from neutrino interactions in the water or the seabed. In order to suppress daylight and background from muons produced in cosmic ray interactions in the Earth's atmosphere, the telescope must be operated at depths of several kilometres.

Work packages

The work foreseen for the design study has been organised in nine different work packages. Each work package has its own coordinator and executive committee, responsible for the progress of the work in the package.