Russian scientists have launched a unique telescope at Lake Baikal – RIA Novosti

© Photo: Institute for Nuclear Research

MOSCOW, May 19 – RIA Novosti. Introduced commissioned a unique experimental facility – deep-sea neutrino telescope multimegatonnogo scale “Dubna” on the lake, said the Institute for Nuclear Research.

The complex, which is the first cluster created kubokilometrovogo scale neutrino telescope Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector), was deployed in early April 2015 the efforts of scientists from the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia), as well as a number of Russian research organizations, included in the collaboration “Baikal”.

The detector is designed to study the natural flow of high-energy neutrinos. Neutrinos passing through the thickness of the Earth may have a chance to interact in the water of Lake Baikal and produce a cascade of charged particles. Cherenkov light from charged particles spread in the lake water and recorded optical modules installation. Cluster “Dubna” contains in its composition 192 optical modules, diving to a depth of 1300 meters and is already one of the three largest neutrino detector in the world. The next stage of the project is the consistent increase in the telescope through the deployment of new clusters. By 2020, it planned to create a setup consisting of 10 – 12 clusters, totaling about 0.5 cubic kilometers, comparable to the sensitive volume of world leaders – IceCube experiment for detecting neutrinos of astrophysical nature. Register at Lake Baikal neutrino high energy allows us to understand the processes occurring in distant astrophysical sources, the origin of cosmic rays of the highest ever recorded energy to open new properties of elementary particles and to learn a lot about the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole.

“The natural flow of the neutrino carries a rich and unique in many respects, information about the world around us. The investigation of this flow in different energy ranges can give the key to understanding the early stages of evolution of the universe, of the formation of the chemical elements of the mechanism of evolution of massive stars and blasts Supernovae, shed light on the problem of the dark (invisible) matter, composition and internal structure of the Sun today, and in a rather remote past, and even deeper insight into the problem of the internal structure of one of the most difficult to study objects – planet Earth “- are words in the message Academician, Head of Section of the Department of Nuclear Physics, Physical Sciences Valery Rubakov.

“It is an important step in creating an exciting neutrino telescope of new generation on the lake. Such a telescope will be a key future international setting Neutrino Observatory, which will include detectors at the South Pole, in the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Baikal. Collaboration Baikal was the founder of this technology in the 80s and 90s and spent the measurement of particles of neutrinos produced in the Earth’s atmosphere. Two decades later, in 2013 in the Antarctic IceCube detector registered the first high-energy neutrinos, born far beyond the Earth and the solar system. This discovery, which has long been waiting for, accelerate the establishment of large projects such detectors in the Northern Hemisphere. With the commissioning of the cluster “Dubna” Baikal collaboration comes to leading positions in these studies. IceCube detector is only slightly opened the veil of high energy neutrinos in the universe. In the future, the project partners Global Neutrino Network will make a complete map of this new space territory. We are waiting for the great scientific discoveries of Lake Baikal “, – said the head of the project Global Neutrino Network Christian Shpiring.