The Lake BAIKAL Neutrino Project: Status Report

A first large deep underwater detector for muons and neutrinos, NT-200, is currently under construction in Lake Baikal. Part of the detector consisting of 36 optical modules (NT-36) has been operated over nearly 2 years in 1993 and 1994. With this detector not only methodical questions are investigated, but also some problems in the field of astroparticle physics, cosmic ray physics and limnology. In March 1995, a 72-PMT version was deployed. We describe the construction of the detector and the present status of the project and review some of the results. 1 The NT-200 Detector The Baikal Neutrino Telescope [1] is being deployed in the Siberian Lake Baikal, about 3.6 km from shore at a depth of 1.1 km. In April 1993 we put into operation the stationary 3-string detector NT-36, since April 1994 a modified version of NT-36 was taking data. An array carrying 72 PMTs has been deployed in March 1995. These arrays are steps towards the Neutrino Telescope NT-200 which will consist of 192 opti..