AMANDA - Ice-fishing for the neutrinos

16 May 2001



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As winter 2002 sets in at the South Pole, AMANDA (the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array) continues its pursuit of one of nature's most bizarre constituents - the particles known as the neutrinos. Rather as the NT200 detector uses the waters of Lake Baikal to pick up neutrinos, AMANDA uses the Antarctic ice as a detector. When neutrinos interact in the ice or rock close by they can produce muons - charged particles that are like electrons but heavier. The muons produce faint flashes of light, known as Cerenkov radiation, as they pass through the ice, and this light can be detected by an array of light-sensitive phototubes, which are supported in the ice. This computer reconstruction shows Cherenkov light detected as a muon streaks up through the array, probably as the result of the interaction of a neutrino that originated on the opposite side of the Earth - in the atmosphere above the Arctic!

Credit: AMANDA / P.Bellrichard

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