NESTOR: A neutrino particle astrophysics underwater laboratory for the Mediterranean

Abstract An underwater neutrino astrophysics laboratory, to be located in the international waters off the Southwest of Greece, near the town of Pylos is now under construction. In the last two years a group of physicists from Greece and Russia have carried out two demonstration experiments in 4km deep water, counting muons and verifying the adequacy of the deep sea site. Plans are presented for a 100, 000 m 2 high energy neutrino detector composed of a hexagon of hexagonal towers, with 1176 optical detector units. A progress report is given and the physics potential of a siggle tower with 168 phototubes (currently under construction) is described

The optical module for the NESTOR neutrino telescope

NESTOR is a deep-sea water Cherenkov neutrino detector now under construction for deployment in the Mediterranean off Greece. Its key component is an optical module employing a photomultiplier tube with a 15 in. hemispherical photocathode in a transparent glass pressure housing. Extensive tests have been made on the sensitivity, uniformity, time resolution, noise rates and mechanical properties of the module: several test deployments have been made at sea. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved