Sensitivity of the KM3NeT/ORCA detector to the neutrino mass ordering and beyond

The KM3NeT collaboration is currently building a new generation of large-volume water-Cherenkov neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean sea. Two detectors, ARCA and ORCA, are under construction. They feature different neutrino energy thresholds: TeV range for ARCA and GeV range for ORCA. The main research goal of ORCA is the measurement of the neutrino mass ordering and atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters, while the detector is also sensitive to a wide variety of other physics topics, including non-standard interactions, sterile neutrinos and Earth tomography, as well as low-energy neutrino astronomy. This contribution will present an overview of the updated ORCA sensitivity projection to its main science objectives, including - but not limited to - the measurement of the neutrino mass ordering and oscillation parameters Future perspectives for ORCA to serve as far detector for a long baseline neutrino experiment with a neutrino beam from the U70 accelerator complex at Protvino in Russia will also be discussed

Tuning parametric models of the atmospheric muon flux in MUPAGE to data from the KM3NeT detector

The muons produced by cosmic ray interactions in the upper atmosphere constitute the most abundant signal for underwater neutrino detectors such as KM3NeT (the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope), which is currently being deployed in the Mediterranean Sea at two distinct locations. Situated at different depths, the KM3NeT/ARCA and KM3NeT/ORCA detectors experience a different flux of muons, and thus are uniquely positioned to study their evolution and propagation from cosmic ray showers. It is imperative to the main physics goals of the experiment that the atmospheric muon background is modelled correctly, which aids in benchmarking and understanding the detector response to the constant flux of these particles. In this study, the data from the KM3NeT/ORCA detector is used and compared with the Monte Carlo (MC) prediction from the MUPAGE (MUons from PArametric formulas: a fast GEnerator for neutrino telescopes) software package, which generates the energy spectrum, lateral distribution, and muon multiplicity of muon bundles according to a specific parametrisation at different depths below sea level. This parametrisation consists of many free parameters which can be tuned such that simulated physical observables in the detector agree with those measured in data. In this way, improvements to the data-MC agreement are achieved by quantitatively comparing the level of agreement between simulated and measured observables in the KM3NeT detector

Atmospheric neutrinos with the first KM3NeT/ORCA data and prospects for measuring the atmospheric neutrino flux

KM3NeT is a research infrastructure aiming to study astrophysical sources as well as to perform particle physics studies, through the detection of neutrinos in the abyssal depths of the Mediterranean Sea. The KM3NeT/ORCA detector (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss), currently under construction, is deployed at 2450 m depth near Toulon, France. It consists of vertical structures (Detection Units) equipped with spherical Digital Optical Modules, each hosting a set of photomultiplier tubes capable of detecting neutrino events from the Cherenkov radiation induced by the daughter particles. In this contribution, an analysis of data collected with the first 6 Detection Units (ORCA6) leading to a sample of atmospheric neutrino events is described. The angular resolution and the energy reconstruction performance for this event selection, which is a key factor for measuring the atmospheric neutrino flux are presented

KM3NeT Detection Unit Line Fit reconstruction using positioning sensors data

The KM3NeT collaboration is constructing two large neutrino detectors in the Mediterranean Sea: KM3NeT/ARCA, located near Sicily and aiming at neutrino astronomy, and KM3NeT/ORCA, located near Toulon and designed for neutrino oscillation studies. The two detectors, together, will have hundreds of Detection Units (DUs) with 18 Digital Optical Modules (DOMs) maintained vertical by buoyancy, forming a large 3D optical array for detecting the Cherenkov light produced by particle produced in neutrino interactions. To properly reconstruct the direction of the incoming neutrino, the position of the DOMs must be known precisely with an accuracy of less than 10 cm, and since the DUs are affected by sea current the position will be measured every 10 minutes. For this purpose, there are acoustic and orientation sensors inside the DOMs. An Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) chip provides the components values of the Acceleration and Magnetic field in the DOM, from which it is possible to calculate Yaw, Pitch, and Roll for each floor of the line. A piezo sensor detects the signals from fixed acoustic emitters on the sea floor, so to position it by trilateration. Data from these sensors are used as an input to reconstruct the shape of the entire line based on a DU Line Fit mechanical model. This proceeding presents an overview of the KM3NeT monitoring system, as well as the line fit model and its results

KM3NeT/ARCA sensitivity to transient neutrino sources

The KM3NeT Collaboration is constructing a km3-volume neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean sea, ARCA (Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss), for the detection and subsequent study of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. This telescope will be able to reconstruct the arrival direction of the neutrinos with a precision of 0.1◦. The configuration of ARCA makes it sensitive to neutrinos in a wide energy range, from sub-TeV up to tens of PeV. Moreover, this detector has a large field of view and a very high duty cycle, allowing for full-sky (and all-flavours) searches. All these features make ARCA an excellent instrument to study transient neutrino sources. Atmospheric muons and neutrinos, produced by primary cosmic rays, constitute the main background for ARCA. This background can be several orders of magnitude higher than the expected cosmic neutrino flux. In this work, we introduce an event selection which reduces the background up to a negligible level inside the region of interest and within the search time window. The ARCA performance to detect a transient neutrino flux, including the effective area, sensitivity and discovery potential, are provided for a given test source, and for different time windows

The REINFORCE Project: Inviting Citizen Scientists to analyse KM3NeT data

Large research infrastructures have opened new observational windows, allowing us to study the structure of matter up to the entire Universe. However, society hardly observes these developments through education and outreach activities. This induces a gap between frontier science and society that may create misconceptions about the content, context, and mission of public funded science. In this context, the main goal of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 "Science with and for Society" REINFORCE project (REsearch INfrastructure FOR Citizens in Europe) is to minimize the knowledge gap between large research infrastructures and society through Citizen Science. A series of activities is being developed on the Zooniverse platform, in four main fields of frontier physics involving large research infrastructures: gravitational waves with the VIRGO interferometer, particle physics with the ATLAS detector at LHC, neutrinos with the KM3NeT telescope, and cosmic rays at the interface of geoscience and archeology. Using real and simulated data, Citizen Scientists will help building a better understanding of the impact of the environment on these very high precision detectors as well as creating new knowledge. This poster describes REINFORCE, with a special emphasis on the Deep Sea Hunter demonstrator involving the KM3NeT neutrino telescope, in order to show practical examples of Citizen Science activities that will be proposed through the project