ANTARES Collaboration(Tamburini, C. et al), Aguilar, J. A., Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., et al. (2013). Deep-Sea Bioluminescence Blooms after Dense Water Formation at the Ocean Surface. PLoS One, 8(7), e67523–10pp.
Abstract: The deep ocean is the largest and least known ecosystem on Earth. It hosts numerous pelagic organisms, most of which are able to emit light. Here we present a unique data set consisting of a 2.5-year long record of light emission by deep-sea pelagic organisms, measured from December 2007 to June 2010 at the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope in the deep NW Mediterranean Sea, jointly with synchronous hydrological records. This is the longest continuous time-series of deep-sea bioluminescence ever recorded. Our record reveals several weeks long, seasonal bioluminescence blooms with light intensity up to two orders of magnitude higher than background values, which correlate to changes in the properties of deep waters. Such changes are triggered by the winter cooling and evaporation experienced by the upper ocean layer in the Gulf of Lion that leads to the formation and subsequent sinking of dense water through a process known as “open-sea convection”. It episodically renews the deep water of the study area and conveys fresh organic matter that fuels the deep ecosystems. Luminous bacteria most likely are the main contributors to the observed deep-sea bioluminescence blooms. Our observations demonstrate a consistent and rapid connection between deep open-sea convection and bathypelagic biological activity, as expressed by bioluminescence. In a setting where dense water formation events are likely to decline under global warming scenarios enhancing ocean stratification, in situ observatories become essential as environmental sentinels for the monitoring and understanding of deep-sea ecosystem shifts.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Aguilar, J. A., Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., et al. (2012). The positioning system of the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope. J. Instrum., 7, T08002–20pp.
Abstract: The ANTARES neutrino telescope, located 40km off the coast of Toulon in the Mediterranean Sea at a mooring depth of about 2475m, consists of twelve detection lines equipped typically with 25 storeys. Every storey carries three optical modules that detect Cherenkov light induced by charged secondary particles (typically muons) coming from neutrino interactions. As these lines are flexible structures fixed to the sea bed and held taut by a buoy, sea currents cause the lines to move and the storeys to rotate. The knowledge of the position of the optical modules with a precision better than 10cm is essential for a good reconstruction of particle tracks. In this paper the ANTARES positioning system is described. It consists of an acoustic positioning system, for distance triangulation, and a compass-tiltmeter system, for the measurement of the orientation and inclination of the storeys. Necessary corrections are discussed and the results of the detector alignment procedure are described.
Keywords: Timing detectors; Detector modelling and simulations II (electric fields, charge transport, multiplication and induction, pulse formation, electron emission, etc); Detector alignment and calibration methods (lasers, sources, particle-beams); Detector control systems (detector and experiment monitoring and slow-control systems, architecture, hardware, algorithms, databases)
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Aguilar, J. A., Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., et al. (2012). Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Astropart Phys., 35(10), 634–640.
Abstract: Magnetic monopoles are predicted in various unified gauge models and could be produced at intermediate mass scales. Their detection in a neutrino telescope is facilitated by the large amount of light emitted compared to that from muons. This paper reports on a search for upgoing relativistic magnetic monopoles with the ANTARES neutrino telescope using a data set of 116 days of live time taken from December 2007 to December 2008. The one observed event is consistent with the expected atmospheric neutrino and muon background, leading to a 90% C.L. upper limit on the monopole flux between 1.3 x 10-(17) and 8.9 x 10(-17) CM-2 s(-1) sr(-1) for monopoles with velocity beta >= 0.625.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2012). Measurement of the group velocity of light in sea water at the ANTARES site. Astropart Phys., 35(9), 552–557.
Abstract: The group velocity of light has been measured at eight different wavelengths between 385 nm and 532 nm in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of about 2.2 km with the ANTARES optical beacon systems. A parametrisation of the dependence of the refractive index on wavelength based on the salinity, pressure and temperature of the sea water at the ANTARES site is in good agreement with these measurements.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Ageron, M. et al), Aguilar, J. A., Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., et al. (2012). The ANTARES telescope neutrino alert system. Astropart Phys., 35(8), 530–536.
Abstract: The ANTARES telescope has the capability to detect neutrinos produced in astrophysical transient sources. Potential sources include gamma-ray bursts, core collapse supernovae, and flaring active galactic nuclei. To enhance the sensitivity of ANTARES to such sources, a new detection method based on coincident observations of neutrinos and optical signals has been developed. A fast online muon track reconstruction is used to trigger a network of small automatic optical telescopes. Such alerts are generated for special events, such as two or more neutrinos, coincident in time and direction, or single neutrinos of very high energy.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2012). Measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Phys. Lett. B, 714(2-5), 224–230.
Abstract: The data taken with the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2010, a total live time of 863 days, are used to measure the oscillation parameters of atmospheric neutrinos. Muon tracks are reconstructed with energies as low as 20 GeV. Neutrino oscillations will cause a suppression of vertical upgoing muon neutrinos of such energies crossing the Earth. The parameters determining the oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos are extracted by fitting the event rate as a function of the ratio of the estimated neutrino energy and reconstructed flight path through the Earth. Measurement contours of the oscillation parameters in a two-flavour approximation are derived. Assuming maximal mixing, a mass difference of Delta m(32)(2) = (3.1 +/- 0.9) . 10(-3) eV(2) is obtained, in good agreement with the world average value.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2012). Search for neutrino emission from gamma-ray flaring blazars with the ANTARES telescope. Astropart Phys., 36(1), 204–210.
Abstract: The ANTARES telescope is well-suited to detect neutrinos produced in astrophysical transient sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all times with a high duty cycle. Radio-loud active galactic nuclei with jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, the so-called blazars, are particularly attractive potential neutrino point sources. The all-sky monitor LAT on board the Fermi satellite probes the variability of any given gamma-ray bright blazar in the sky on time scales of hours to months. Assuming hadronic models, a strong correlation between the gamma-ray and the neutrino fluxes is expected. Selecting a narrow time window on the assumed neutrino production period can significantly reduce the background. An unbinned method based on the minimization of a likelihood ratio was applied to a subsample of data collected in 2008 (61 days live time). By searching for neutrinos during the high state periods of the AGN light curve, the sensitivity to these sources was improved by about a factor of two with respect to a standard time-integrated point source search. First results on the search for neutrinos associated with ten bright and variable Fermi sources are presented.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Aguilar, J. A. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2012). A method for detection of muon induced electromagnetic showers with the ANTARES detector. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 675, 56–62.
Abstract: The primary aim of ANTARES is neutrino astronomy with upward going muons created in charged current muon neutrino interactions in the detector and its surroundings. Downward going muons are background for neutrino searches. These muons are the decay products of cosmic-ray collisions in the Earth's atmosphere far above the detector. This paper presents a method to identify and count electromagnetic showers induced along atmospheric muon tracks with the ANTARES detector. The method is applied to both cosmic muon data and simulations and its applicability to the reconstruction of muon event energies is demonstrated.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2012). Search for Cosmic Neutrino Point Sources with Four Years of Data from the Antares Telescope. Astrophys. J., 760(1), 53–10pp.
Abstract: In this paper, a time-integrated search for point sources of cosmic neutrinos is presented using the data collected from 2007 to 2010 by the ANTARES neutrino telescope. No statistically significant signal has been found and upper limits on the neutrino flux have been obtained. Assuming an E-nu(-2). spectrum, these flux limits are at 1-10x10(-8) GeV cm(-2) s(-1) for declinations ranging from -90 degrees to 40 degrees. Limits for specific models of RX J1713.7-3946 and Vela X, which include information on the source morphology and spectrum, are also given.
|
ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Bigongiari, C., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Lambard, G., et al. (2013). Search for a correlation between ANTARES neutrinos and Pierre Auger Observatory UHECRs arrival directions. Astrophys. J., 774(1), 19–7pp.
Abstract: A multimessenger analysis optimized for a correlation of arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and neutrinos is presented and applied to 2190 neutrino candidate events detected in 2007-2008 by the ANTARES telescope and 69 UHECRs observed by the Pierre Auger Observatory between 2004 January 1 and 2009 December 31. No significant correlation is observed. Assuming an equal neutrino flux (E-2 energy spectrum) from all UHECR directions, a 90% CL upper limit on the neutrino flux of 5.0 x 10(-8) GeV cm(-2) s(-1) per source is derived.
|
