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KM3NeT blog posts
On 27 July 2020, the ORCA detector of KM3NeT reached a milestone: its first 6 strings were continuously taking data since 6 months. With two musical productions of the amazing talents in the KM3NeT Collaboration, the milestone was celebrated.
Enjoy ‘6 strings, 6 months’, the song of the Route 66 of KM3NeT and an instrumental piece on 6 pianos by 6 players.
Both productions were recorded in corona times – at large distances between the performers.
13 July 2020 – The KM3NeT Collaboration has published the details of gSeaGen, a simulation software package for efficient generation of neutrino events for the analysis of measured light signals in the KM3NeT telescopes. Monte Carlo simulations play an important role in the data analysis of neutrino telescopes. They are used to design reconstruction algorithms for neutrino events and to estimate cosmic and atmospheric signals in various physics analyses.
The new gSeaGen software tool is based on code of the GENIE Collaboration which aims at developing a global software platform for the Monte Carlo simulation of neutrino interactions with energies up to PeV scales. Currently, the GENIE simulation code focuses mainly on events in the low-energy range (≤5 GeV) and is valid up to 5 TeV.
As described in the paper, the gSeaGen tool allows for the generation of electron, muon and tau neutrino. Its application for the KM3NeT telescopes is described in detail.
KM3NeT Collaboration, S. Aiello, et al., Computer Physics Communications 256 (2020) 107477
17 June 2020 – The KM3NeT Collaboration has published a new paper about the control unit of the data acquisition system. The data acquisition control software of KM3NeT is operating both the off-shore detectors in the deep sea and in the lab the testing and qualification stations for detector components. The software, named Control Unit, is highly modular. It can undergo upgrades and reconfiguration with the acquisition running. Interplay with the central database of the Collaboration is obtained in a way that allows for data taking even if Internet links fail. In order to simplify the management of computing resources in the long term, and to cope with possible hardware failures of one or more computers, the KM3NeT Control Unit software features a custom dynamic resource provisioning and failover technology, which is especially important for ensuring continuity in case of rare transient events in multi-messenger astronomy. The software architecture relies on ubiquitous tools and broadly adopted technologies and has been successfully tested on several operating systems.
KM3NeT Collaboration, S. Aiello, et al., Computer Physics Communications 256 (2020) 107433, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2020.107433, arXiv:1910.00112v1
10 June 2020 – The KM3NeT Collaboration is deeply saddened by the recent outbreaks of violence and hatred against people of colour. They once again laid bare the enduring worldwide systemic racism.
The researchers in KM3NeT are strongly against any kind of racism or discrimination. We urge all citizens of the world and their leaders to embrace all actions suited to establish equal opportunities for all, and forever.
As a collaboration, we will increase awareness on the impact of unintended racism and discrimination in our universities and research institutes and in particular in our collaboration.
8 June 2020 – Like so many other meetings, also the Spring Collaboration meeting of KM3NeT went online during corona times. A week full of discussions started today. An online concert and quiz are planned. Of course the traditional group photo has already been made.
17-19 December 2019, KM3NeT Town Hall meeting in Marseille to promote our amazing multi-messenger programmes.
Stay tuned!
First keynote speakers
After the general introduction by the KM3NeT Spokesperson Mauro Taiuti, the Deputy Spokesperson Aart Heijboer will present the expected performances of KM3NeT detectors and Dorothea Samtleben will show the first data from KM3NeT.
08 November 2019 – We are happy to welcome the Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China, in our collaboration!
The HEP group at the School of Physics in SYSU is involved in various aspects of the intensity frontier, cosmic frontier and energy frontier, being involved in the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, and the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory experiment among others.
The high-energy astrophysics group at the School of Physics and Astronomy focuses on theoretical study and data analysis of extreme high-energy phenomena, such as GRB, SNR and AGN. Together with the Tianqin Research Center at SPA, which is devoted to Tianqin project – a LISA-like space gravitational wave project, the group is focusing on the multi-messenger study, combining information from various messengers from space, such as electromagnetic radiation, neutrinos and gravitational waves.
“In short, the team at SYSU has a broad endeavor in neutrino physics and multi-messenger studies. With the help of KM3NeT, we will be able to further reach the neutrino spectrum in the cosmic frontier, crossing-over with other interesting sciences.” says Lily Yang, PI of the new KM3NeT group.
23 January 2019 – An internal KM3NeT workshop on ‘Simulation and Data Analysis’ was organised at INFN – Istitutio Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Genova, Italy. In the last two years the ARCA and ORCA sites were equipped with the first detection units which allowed for obtaining the first calibration data. The data comprises many measurements of muons created in the atmosphere. These measurements, although background to the neutrino signal, are extremely useful for the understanding of the detector performance and improving detector calibration and simulations of the detector response. The aim of the workshop was to review the currently existing simulation software tools and tuning them to reach agreement with the collected data on a new precision level.
Simulation of background events comprises very computationally intensive tasks, which must be run on the GRID and cloud infrastructures. For this, automatic workflows for the software deployment and running on different computer infrastructures were discussed and tests have been started. The simulation workflows also should keep provenance of the data to allow for repetition and tracing of each simulated event. Automisation of the quality control of the data and simulation is yet another key task addressed at the workshop.
20 November 2018 – As an ESFRI research infrastructure for neutrino astronomy and particle physics, KM3NeT actively participates in the new ESCAPE science cluster that will address Open Science data challenges shared by the participating European large research infrastructures for astronomy and particle physics. Early 2019, ESCAPE will be launched officially. Read the press release and the project summary.
23 October 2018 – KM3NeT proudly presents its new management team!
In a few months from now, at 1 February 2019, the new management team will take over from the current one for a term of two years. Mauro Taiuti chairs the team as the Spokesperson (Director) of the KM3NeT Collaboration. He shares the tasks with Aart Heijboer, who is the Deputy Spokesperson. Miles Lindsey Clark is the Technical Project Manager and Paschal Coyle the Physics and Software Manager. Together they will lead the KM3NeT Collaboration of researchers and engineers in their endeavour of building the ARCA and ORCA neutrino detectors, taking data and searching with deep learning techniques and complex algorithms for signatures of neutrinos.
The KM3NeT Collaboration has great confidence in the team and congratulates all four members with their election!
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