The Case for a Kilometer-Scale High-Energy Neutrino Detector: 1996

Abstract

The objective of neutrino astronomy, born with the identification of thermonuclear fusion in the sun and the particle processes controlling the fate of a nearby supernova, is to build instruments which reach throughout and far beyond our Galaxy and make measurements relevant to cosmology, astrophysics, cosmic-ray and particle physics. These telescopes will push astronomy to wavelengths smaller than $10^{-14}$~cm by mapping the sky in high-energy neutrinos instead of high-energy photons to which the Universe is partially opaque. While a variety of collaborations are pioneering complementary methods by building neutrino detectors with effective area in excess of 0.01~km$^2$, we show here that the science dictates 1~km$^2$, or a 1~km$^3$ instrumented volume, as the natural scale of a high-energy neutrino telescope. The construction of a high-energy neutrino telescope therefore requires a huge volume of very transparent, deeply buried material such as ocean water or ice, which acts as the medium for detecting the particles. We will speculate on its architecture. The field is immersed in technology in the domain of particle physics to which many of its research goals are intellectually connected. With several thousand optical modules the scope of constructing a kilometer-scale instrument is similar to that of experiments presently being commissioned such as the SNO neutrino observatory in Canada and the Superkamiokande experiment in Japan.