Catalonia and Valencia will bring its technology to the new telescope ... - La Vanguardia

Barcelona / Valencia, February 10 (Reuters) -. Catalan and Valencian universities will participate in the construction of the telescope in the world’s largest neutrino, whose location is yet to be decided, to study the Universe from the seabed

addition Bioacústias Applications Laboratory (LAB) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Institute participates Corpuscular Physics (IFIC), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University of Valencia (UV), which coordinates the Spanish scientific participation, and a research group at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV).

LAB

manage UPC, Michel André, has announced the construction of this telescope, which will be used to study the impact of noise pollution in the sea as well as astronomical and particle physics phenomena, during the presentation of scientific meeting held from 17 to 21 February in Vilanova (Barcelona) researchers of the KM3NeT project.

Over a hundred scientists from around the world will gather in those days Neapolis Vilanova Geltrú building and to plan the construction of this great European neutrino telescope new generation.

André

As explained, this telescope will be the second largest infrastructure done so far after the Great Wall of China, and exceed in height the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (the world’s tallest building), but submerged under thousands of feet on the seabed.

future KM3NeT (acronym from Neutrino Telescope km3) be of a size fifty times that of its predecessor, the ANTARES (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss Environmental Research), which for the past 15 years has collected astronomical data from 2.500 meters deep Mediterranean (off the coast of Provence).

The scientific meeting will serve both to analyze the results obtained by this telescope, and to establish the next steps for the construction and location of the KM3NeT.

According to UPC, such telescopes can capture neutrinos, elementary particles that have virtually no mass, electrically neutral.

These particles are emitted during radioactive decay and can provide valuable information on astrophysical phenomena where they occur, such as exploding stars, or supernovas, black holes, active centers of galaxies and other extreme phenomena of the Universe.

The purpose of these instruments is to locate and decipher neutrinos characteristics and for this we must detect the blue light called ‘Cerenkov’, which is the trail left by the charged particles of neutrinos when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

This can be seen best from the bottom of the sea where no light pollution and photomultiplier tubes to detect small signals that capture light and convert it into an electrical signal is available.

These tubes and photodetectors would be the real “eyes” of the ANTARES and KM3NeT, facing the sea bed to study astronomical phenomena, explained André.

Modeled

of ANTARES, KM3NeT will consist of a three-dimensional grid of high-sensitivity photodetectors fixed cables, that from the bottom of the sea, hundreds of meters will rise toward the surface, forming a large cylinder.

LAB UPC provide technology to reveal the daily behavior of marine organisms in the deeper water and the influence of noise and help to detect small acoustic load that produces the neutrino to impact the seawater.