Neutrino Astronomy

The Erlangen astroparticle groups participate in three Cherenkov neutrino detectors that are or will be located deep in the Mediterranean Sea or the Antarctic ice. The ANTARES detector off the French coast was finished in 2008, while its successor, the cubic-kilometre neutrino telescope KM3NeT, is currently under construction. The IceCube neutrino telescope was completed in 2010 and instruments a volume of 1 cubic-kilometre of clear ice below the geographic South Pole. It opened the window to neutrino astronomy by the first detection of high energetic cosmic neutrinos. Plans for an extension of the detector towards IceCube Gen2 are in preparation.

Furthermore, a radio detector for neutrinos (RNO-G) will be built in Greenland with a strong contribution from Erlangen. It acts as first mid-scale experiment at energies above PeV and as R&D for the radio array of IceCube Gen2 .