Speaker
Description
While other neutrino telescopes use optical modules comprising a single large 10” PMT
in a 17” glass sphere, KM3NeT features a novel design with 31 small PMTs with a 3”
photocathode diameter, along with calibration devices and the associated electronics. The
new design provides multiple benefits, such as an improved photocathode area, equivalent to
the effective area of three 10” PMTs, an almost uniform angular coverage and a sensitivity
to the direction of the detected photons. The calibration devices allow for a precise position
and timing calibrations of the optical modules, improving the overall performance of the
whole detector. The modules are assembled and integrated at eight different integration
sites. To ensure that each module performs at the required standards and given the amount
of modules - more than 6000 - needed for the ARCA and ORCA detector, the KM3Net
collaboration has implemented a distributed production model with well-defined integration,
documentation, testing and quality control procedures that every integration site has to
follow. Moreover, the KM3NeT quality plan comprise a protocol to track and handle any
issue that may occur during the production. In this talk I will present the characteristics
of the novel multi-PMT optical module of KM3NeT and the integration procedure. I will
also describe the challenges met during the implementation of the distributed production
model and the performance of the KM3NeT optical modules.
