Abstract: KM3NeT is a research infrastructure being installed in the deep Mediterranean Sea. It will house a neutrino telescope comprising hundreds of networked moorings – detection units or strings – equipped with optical instrumentation to detect the Cherenkov radiation generated by charged particles from neutrino-induced collisions in its vicinity. In comparison to moorings typically used for oceanography, several key features of the KM3NeT string are different: the instrumentation is contained in transparent and thus unprotected glass spheres; two thin Dyneema (R) ropes are used as strength members; and a thin delicate backbone tube with fibre-optics and copper wires for data and power transmission, respectively, runs along the full length of the mooring. Also, compared to other neutrino telescopes such as ANTARES in the Mediterranean Sea and GVD in Lake Baikal, the KM3NeT strings are more slender to minimise the amount of material used for support of the optical sensors. Moreover, the rate of deploying a large number of strings in a period of a few years is unprecedented. For all these reasons, for the installation of the KM3NeT strings, a custom-made, fast deployment method was designed. Despite the length of several hundreds of metres, the slim design of the string allows it to be compacted into a small, re-usable spherical launching vehicle instead of deploying the mooring weight down from a surface vessel. After being lowered to the seafloor, the string unfurls to its full length with the buoyant launching vehicle rolling along the two ropes. The design of the vehicle, the loading with a string, and its underwater self-unrolling are detailed in this paper.

Abstract: The momentum measurement capability of the ATLAS muon spectrometer relies fundamentally on the intrinsic single-hit spatial resolution of the monitored drift tube precision tracking chambers. Optimal resolution is achieved with a dedicated calibration program that addresses the specific operating conditions of the 354 000 high-pressure drift tubes in the spectrometer. The calibrations consist of a set of timing offsets and drift time to drift distance transfer relations, and result in chamber resolution functions. This paper describes novel algorithms to obtain precision calibrations from data collected by ATLAS in LHC Run 2 and from a gas monitoring chamber, deployed in a dedicated gas facility. The algorithm output consists of a pair of correction constants per chamber which are applied to baseline calibrations, and determined to be valid for the entire ATLAS Run 2. The final single-hit spatial resolution, averaged over 1172 monitored drift tube chambers, is 81.7 +/- 2.2 μm.

Abstract: The semiconductor tracker is a silicon microstrip detector forming part of the inner tracking system of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The operation and performance of the semiconductor tracker during the first years of LHC running are described. More than 99% of the detector modules were operational during this period, with an average intrinsic hit efficiency of (99.74 +/- 0.04)%. The evolution of the noise occupancy is discussed, and measurements of the Lorentz angle, delta-ray production and energy loss presented. The alignment of the detector is found to be stable at the few-micron level over long periods of time. Radiation damage measurements, which include the evolution of detector leakage currents, are found to be consistent with predictions and are used in the verification of radiation background simulations.