Letter of intent for KM3NeT 2.0

The main objectives of the KM3NeT Collaboration are (i) the discovery and subsequent observation of high-energy neutrino sources in the Universe and (ii) the determination of the mass hierarchy of neutrinos. These objectives are strongly motivated by two recent important discoveries, namely: (1) the high-energy astrophysical neutrino signal reported by IceCube and (2) the sizable contribution of electron neutrinos to the third neutrino mass eigenstate as reported by Daya Bay, Reno and others. To meet these objectives, the KM3NeT Collaboration plans to build a new Research Infrastructure consisting of a network of deep-sea neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea. A phased and distributed implementation is pursued which maximises the access to regional funds, the availability of human resources and the synergistic opportunities for the Earth and sea sciences community. Three suitable deep-sea sites are selected, namely off-shore Toulon (France), Capo Passero (Sicily, Italy) and Pylos (Peloponnese, Greece). The infrastructure will consist of three so-called building blocks. A building block comprises 115 strings, each string comprises 18 optical modules and each optical module comprises 31 photo-multiplier tubes. Each building block thus constitutes a three-dimensional array of photo sensors that can be used to detect the Cherenkov light produced by relativistic particles emerging from neutrino interactions. Two building blocks will be sparsely configured to fully explore the IceCube signal with similar instrumented volume, different methodology, improved resolution and complementary field of view, including the galactic plane. One building block will be densely configured to precisely measure atmospheric neutrino oscillations

Б1.В.ДВ.2.1 ФОС Организация государственных учреждений

International audienc

Indirect dark matter searches with neutrinos from the Galactic Centre region with the ANTARES and KM3NeT telescopes

An anomalous flux of neutrinos produced in hypothetical annihilations or decays of dark matter inside a source would produce a signal observable with neutrino telescopes. As suggested by observations, a conspicuous amount of dark matter is believed to accumulate in the centre of our Galaxy, which is in neat visibility for the Mediterranean underwater telescopes ANTARES and KM3NeT. Searches have been conducted with a maximum likelihood method to identify the presence of a dark matter signature in the neutrino flux measured by ANTARES. Results of all-flavour searches for WIMPs with masses from 50 GeV/c2 up to 100 TeV/c2 over the whole operation period from 2007 to 2020 are presented here. Alternative scenarios which propose a dark matter candidate in the heavy sector extensions of the Standard Model would produce a clear signature in the ANTARES telescope, that can exploit its view of the Galactic Centre up to high energies. The presentation of Galactic Centre searches is completed with ongoing analyses and future potential of the KM3NeT telescope, in phased construction in the Mediterranean Sea