Madrid, 21 (Europe Press)
The facility, designed to have a volume of about 30 cubic kilometers, will be submerged to a depth of more than one kilometer, said Chen Mingjun, principal investigator of the project at the Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The goal of building such an underwater telescope is to detect high-energy neutrinos. The particles are thought to be produced outside the solar system. According to Chen, detecting neutrinos passing through a telescope will help solve a centuries-old scientific mystery about the origin of cosmic rays.
In the early 20th century, scientists discovered that the Earth is constantly being bombarded with energetic particles from outer space called cosmic rays. In 2021, the China High Altitude Atmospheric Showers Observatory (LHAASO) detected 12 gamma-ray sources that are believed to come from the same sources as cosmic rays.
A common hypothesis, Chen said, is that high-energy neutrinos and gamma rays are likely to be produced simultaneously when high-energy cosmic rays originate.
“If we can detect the two particles together, we can determine the origin of the cosmic rays,” Chen said.
Passing through the water, neutrinos will collide with atomic nuclei and produce secondary particles, emitting light signals that can be picked up by underwater detectors.
Some research already points to this possibility, and Chen believes that the discovery of neutrinos can trace the origin of this mysterious space radiation.
As for the reason why scientists deploy the telescope in the depths of the waters, Chen said that sunlight does not penetrate the darkness from a distance of one kilometer below the surface. And since photosynthesis cannot take place, there are no fish or microorganisms either.
“Clean water will help increase the chance of detecting neutrino signals,” Chen said.
Similar foreign underwater neutrino detectors include the cubic kilometer-scale IceCube Neutrino Observatory, deployed near the South Pole, and the Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope, which currently covers 0.5 cubic kilometers in Lake Baikal.
Chen said the planned Chinese detector will be much larger. “It will be a 30 cubic kilometer detector with more than 55,000 optical modules suspended along 2,300 strings.”
In February, his team completed its first sea trial to test the detection system at a depth of 1,800 meters underwater.
Most of Chen’s team spent years studying cosmic rays. They participated in the LHAASO project, a giant cosmic ray detector located 4.41 km above sea level in Sichuan Province, southwest China.
However, hunting space neutrinos in the deep sea is more of a problem than in the mountains, Chen said, adding that current challenges for his team include developing detectors to meet high waterproofing requirements, as well as high costs for underwater equipment and operations.
“Creator. Devoted pop culture specialist. Certified web fanatic. Unapologetic coffee lover.”