Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 103: Neutrinoastronomie V

T 103.2: Talk

Thursday, March 3, 2016, 17:05–17:20, VMP9 SR 08

Simulation of atmospherics in KM3NeT — •Thomas Heid for the ANTARES-KM3NeT-Erlangen collaboration — ECAP - FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen

With the installation of the first KM3NeT line, a new facility for neutrino astronomy started operation at the end of 2015. KM3NeT detectors are built of several thousands of digital optical modules(DOM) deployed in a three-dimensional grid. The DOMs receive light from particles passing the detector or created in neutrino interactions in the vicinity of the detector. A primary physics goal is to detect point-like neutrino sources. An important step in understanding the signal of astrophysical sources, is to understand the background to the measurement originating in the atmosphere. It consists of muons and neutrinos. Dedicated simulations optimized for KM3NeT have been performed. This contribution describes the simulation chain, starting with an atmospheric air shower simulation and propagating particles from the sea surface to the detector at a depth of 2.5 to 3.5 km. The nature of the background expected to most strongly affect KM3NeT's sensitivity to astrophysical neutrino fluxes is presented, as are methods for dealing with it. Besides their role as background, studying atmospheric particles can improve the understanding of particle creation in the atmosphere, especially the charm production mechanism.