AMANDA 2000

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This project, which is a renewal of an ongoing effort, makes use of the ice sheet at South Pole to build a large detector of very high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. The detector was constructed between 1,400 and 2,400 meters below the surface by melting holes into the ice with a hot water drill and then freezing in long stings of widely space photomultiplier tubes. Occasionally upward going neutrinos, which have passed through the bulk of the Earth, interact in the ice, producing charged particles, the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), detects the resulting flash of light, from which the energy and direction of flight of the original neutrino can be deduced. Because neutrinos are so penetrating, and because they are not deflected by magnetic fields, they offer the opportunity to see inside of regions of the universe that are completely obscured from study by any other technique. The present detector has 19 strings in place, and this award will provide the manpower and equipment necessary to calibrate the strings that were installed in the austral summer of 1999/2000, maintain the detector and analyze the resulting data. It will also provide some funding toward advanced technology development aimed toward the possible eventual construction of a cubic kilometer detector, IceCube. AMANDA is a collaboration of the University of Wisconsin (this award), the Universities of California at Berkeley and Irvine, Lawrence Berkley national Laboratory (partly funded though this award), the Universities of Stockholm, Kalmar and Uppsula (Sweden), DESY, the Universities of Wuppertal and Mainz (Germany), and the Universities of Brussels and Mons (Belgium). The institutions other than Wisconsin and some of LBNL are funded through different channels. Within the US, this project is supported by DoE, and within NSF by the Division of Physics and the Office of Polar Programs.