The KM3NeT Research Infrastructure offers unique possibilities to perform real-time and long-term experiments and test novel technologies in the extreme environment of the deep-sea. Thanks to the KM3NeT-INFRADEV project, a framework was developed for external users outside of the high-energy astroparticle community, that can benefit from access to the KM3NeT infrastructure. This included the issue of making publicly available in a suitable format the wealth of data that are collected by the neutrino telescope sensors mostly for calibration purposes.
Services offered to external users were addressed to: (i) other science communities which need ‘plug and play’ infrastructures in extreme environments to perform their research aiming at taking data or installing new devices to measure oceanographic, acoustic and optical properties of the deep-sea sites; (ii) industries which need to perform real-time and long-term tests to qualify new instrumentation – e.g. deep-sea connectors, cables and mechanical parts.
The objective was for KM3NeT to provide free-of-charge access to the infrastructure and the data for scientific purposes. To realise this, the related modalities of access were established, such as defining and preparing for the selection procedures of external experiments and preparing the structure for support services to the user. In addition, a study to prepare for the commercial use of the facility was pursued.
Due to the sensitivity of some of the results produced by this work package, not all deliverables were made public. However, outcomes concerning external users of the KM3NeT infrastructure have been published on the Project outputs page and comprise:
- D8.1 – Report on the rules of access for external users
- D8.2 – Report on the manuals for external users
- D8.6 – Design of a demonstrator of junction box with user port for external users
KM3NeT-INFRADEV was supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement n. 739560.
