KM3NeT - Events

The KM3NeT Collaboration met online

14 March 2023 – The KM3NeT Collaboration met online last week for the spring Collaboration meeting.

During the meeting we reviewed the status of data taking and data analysis of ARCA and ORCA, and discussed the progress in detector construction and the plans for next sea campaigns.

The Collaboration continues to grow: a research team has joined as full member of the Collaboration from University of Hull in UK (team leader: Brad Gibson) and a team from Ariel University in Israel (team leader: Dafne Guetta) has been welcomed as observer; furthermore, Marco Miceli of University of Palermo, Italy, has been accepted as associated member.

During the meeting the first-ever winners of the Giorgos Androulakis Prize, Tamás Gál and Edward Berbee, were announced.

The plan for next Collaboration meetings was also finalized. A decision of the KM3NeT Collaboration, meant to reduce the carboon footprint on the planet, is that at least one of the general Collaboration meetings is organized online per year. The next Collaboration meetings will take place in person, in early June in Salerno and in mid-October in Paris.

31 January-02 February 2023

Face-to-face meeting of the astronomy working group in Observatoire de Haute Provence, close to Marseille.

 

A vibrant Collaboration meeting in Athens

27 May 2022 – Last week the KM3NeT Collaboration joined in Athens for an in-person Collaboration meeting. It was a long-awaited achievement, after two years of remote meetings.  Many thanks to our hosts at NCSR Demokritos for an excellent organisation!

The pleasure to be together again gave new impulse to all activities, and vibrant discussions took place about progress in construction of ARCA and ORCA, preparation of deployments campaigns and the latest methods and results of data analysis.

Besides the fact that we were extremely happy to meet in person again, we have also learned from the pandemic and our ZOOM-experience: With an eye on sustainability, family situations or other obligations, we also offered the possibility to join the meeting remotely. Which worked great!

Of course we also discussed about the war in Ukraine: With deep sadness for the horror which has been developing there for months now, the Collaboration decided to formally suspend all relationships with public institutions in Russia, including those institutes which had a status of observer institutes in the Collaboration. This won’t impact, though, on the solidarity and friendship with our colleagues in Russia, many of whom have openly stood up against the war, who will be therefore still welcome to participate in KM3NeT on a private basis.

During the meeting, the University of Georgia, which participates in KM3NeT with a team led by Kakhaber Tavzarashvili, changed its membership status from observer to member institute, and several colleagues from various institutes made their debut.

Finally, the meeting gave a good opportunity to refine the plans for the newly approved projects of KM3NeT Infradev-2, supported by EU, and the French project NEUMED.

What a feeling to take a nice Collaboration picture again!