Abstract:

The July-2002 report of the High Energy Neutrino Astrophysics Panel (HENAP) recommended the construction of a km³-scale Northern hemisphere neutrino observatory to complement a large-scale under-ice observatory (IceCube) in the Southern hemisphere. Such an observatory would study cosmic neutrinos with energies in excess of a few hundred GeV, which arrive undeviated from a variety of galactic and extragalactic sources of astrophysical interest, and which might be produced in the possible annihilation of dark matter particles, including neutralinos. Future developments in technology from that being presently implemented by the Lake Baikal, Nestor, and Antares collaborations toward that necessary for a much larger km³-scale array are discussed. In January 2000, a part of the Nemo collaboration, engaged in studies for a km³ scale detector close to the Sicilian coast, joined Antares in the development of a 0.1km² detector. The two collaborations have formed a common working group to coordinate the effort toward the construction of a km³- scale detector. The great depth presents numerous technical challenges in the construction, deployment and interconnection of such detectors, and may require the involvement of industrial contractors with experience in fields including deep-sea oil exploitation, submarine telecommunications cable deployment, underwater acoustic navigation and communication, and in the operation of manned or remotely-operated submarine vehicles. This paper reviews the status of some of the technologies for underwater neutrino detector arrays.

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