First results from the ANTARES neutrino telescope

Abstract

The ANTARES detector is the most sensitive neutrino telescope observing the southern sky and the world's first particle detector operating in the deep sea. It is installed in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2475 m. As an example of early results, the determination of the atmospheric muon flux is discussed and a good agreement with previous measurements is found. Furthermore, the results of a search for high-energy events in excess of the atmospheric neutrino flux are reported and significant limits are set on the diffuse cosmic neutrino flux in the multi-TeV to PeV energy range. Using data from more than 800 days of effective data taking, partly during the construction phase, a first analysis searching for point-like excesses in the neutrino sky distribution has been performed. The resulting sensitivity of ANTARES is reported and compared to measurements of other detectors. A method employed for a first search for neutrinos from Fermi-detected gamma-ray flaring blazars in the last 4 months of 2008 is described and the results are reported. No significant neutrino signal in excess of that expected from atmospheric background has been found.