Descrizione del progetto
Telescopio subacqueo rivoluzionario alla ricerca di neutrini cosmici
I neutrini cosmici potrebbero rivelare i processi che si verificano ai margini dei buchi neri supermassicci. Per individuarli sono necessari enormi telescopi di diversi chilometri cubi di ghiaccio o acqua dotati di migliaia di sensori di luce. I sensori catturano la scia di luce creata dalla collisione di un neutrino con una molecola d’acqua, consentendo agli scienziati di determinare l’energia e la direzione di origine del neutrino. Il progetto NEUTRINOSHOT, finanziato dall’UE, svilupperà un nuovo osservatorio per i neutrini cosmici nell’Oceano Pacifico, il Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE). Il nuovo telescopio array multilinea per neutrini sarà in grado di funzionare in condizioni estreme in acque profonde con sensibilità di diversi ordini di grandezza migliori rispetto a quelle di ultima generazione.
Obiettivo
For over a century, ultra-high energy cosmic rays (CR) have been observed by scientists, but their energy and place of production remain a mystery. At very high energies, neutrinos generated by CR carry messages from, e.g. the verge of supermassive black holes, but here our understanding is limited. Tracking neutrinos offers a way to trace the origin of the highest energetic particles in the universe. The stumbling block is that neutrinos, the ghost particles, are notoriously tough to detect. A target of at least a Gigaton of natural transparent material, like water or ice, must be instrumented to collect neutrinos from the cosmos. Currently, only IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has the exposure to detect very high-energy neutrinos beyond Earth’s atmosphere. More and larger telescopes are needed to advance on this promising, rich path of fundamental discoveries in astro and particle physics. The objectives of NEUTRINOSHOT are to significantly advance the development of telescopes that detect far beyond the reach of IceCube, and make the exploration of cosmic accelerators more affordable. This can only be achieved with multi-cubic-kilometre (km) neutrino telescopes, currently limited by the scalability of technology to volumes beyond the cubic km. To this end, the lead researcher has identified the optimum testing location and established a scientific relationship with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) to pioneer this global network as a testbed infrastructure for first case testing, deployment, and use of a new multi-line array neutrino telescope capable of functioning in extreme deep sea environmental conditions with improved sensitivities by orders of magnitude. This project will detect the first neutrinos in the Pacific Ocean and give neutrino astronomy a new “shot” to bring science a major step closer to revealing the hidden parts of our universe.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsIstituzione ospitante
80333 Muenchen
Germania