22 July 2016 – The KM3NeT Collaboration congratulates Simon Bourret, Astroparticle and Cosmology, Paris with the award of one of the Best Poster Prizes for his poster presented at the International ISAPP Summer Institute, 11-21 July in L’Aquila, Italy.
During 10 days at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, young physicists, geophysicists, and geologists exchanged knowledge and skills with the aim to shape an emerging inter-disciplinary field of geoscience research using methodologies from (astro)particle physics.
In his poster with the title ‘Earth Tomography with KM3NeT/ORCA’ Simon showed the potential of the ORCA detector for imaging the interior of the Earth using neutrinos penetrating the globe.
The idea is to use the ‘matter-effect’ that for neutrinos traversing the Earth will modify the pattern of oscillating from one neutrino type into another. Using this ‘matter-effect’ and studying the angular and energy distribution of these neutrinos, tomographic information of the Earth interior can be provided. In particular, ORCA may contribute to constraining the chemical composition of Earth layers that are not accessible for direct geophysical measurements. A new research field is emerging!
