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I'm trying to understand the basic operation of the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Here is what I've gathered:

  1. The detection of neutrinos relies upon the detection of muons.

  2. Cosmic rays and neutrinos bombard Earth from all directions. To minimise the effects of atmospheric muons the detector is placed deep beneath Earth's surface (about 2km).

  3. The photomultiplier tubes can be used to discriminate between the upward going muons, and the downward atmospheric muons by examining the induced Cherenkov light.

But I have several questions;

What are the physical limitations on such a telescope? - it's size? the number of PMTs used?

The (extra-)galactic neutrinos do not "lose" their energy as they traverse the cosmos, but what information can we extract from detecting the muons? - is this because we're searching for dark matter and know that these neutrinos must have a finite mass?

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

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    $\begingroup$ Have you gone through the antares.in2p3.fr/Overview/index.html and links therein? $\endgroup$
    – anna v
    Commented Jan 30, 2019 at 5:17
  • $\begingroup$ Can you expand on what you mean by physical limitations? Do you mean what prevents them from building a larger detector? $\endgroup$
    – user545424
    Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 19:50

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