Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array

The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) was a neutrino telescope that was located beneath the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. In 2005, after nine years of operation, AMANDA became part of its successor project, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. AMANDA consisted of optical modules, each containing one photomultiplier tube, sunk in Antarctic ice cap at a depth of about 1500 to 1900 metres. In its latest development stage, known as AMANDA-II, AMANDA was made up of an array of 677 optical modules mounted on 19 separate strings that are spread out in a rough circle with a diameter of 200 metres. Each string had several dozen modules, that were put in place by "drilling" a hole in the ice using a hot-water hose, sinking the cable with attached optical modules in, and then letting the ice freeze around it. AMANDA detected very high energy neutrinos (50+ GeV) which pass through the Earth from the northern hemisphere and then react just as they are leaving upwards through the Antarctic ice. The neutrino interacts with nuclei of oxygen or hydrogen atoms contained in the surrounding water ice through the weak nuclear force, producing a muon and a hadronic shower. The optical modules detected the Cherenkov radiation from these latter particles, and by analysis of the timing of photon hits could approximately determine the direction of the original neutrino with a spatia

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