AMANDA : status report from the 1993-94 campaign and optical properties of the South Pole ice

• We report the first results of the AMANDA detector. During the antarctic summer 1993-94 four strings were deployed between 0.8 an 1 km depth, each equipped with 20 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). A laser source was used to investigate the optical properties of the ice in situ. We find that the ice is intrinsically extremely transparent. The measured absorption length is 59 ± 3 m, i.e. comparable with the quality of the ultra-pure water used in the IMB and Kamiokande proton-decay and neutrino experiments [1,2] and more than two times longer than the best value reported for laboratory ice [3]. Due to a residual density of air bubbles at these depths, the motion of photons in the medium is randomized. For spherical, smooth bubbles we find that, at 1 km depth, the average distance between collisions is about 25 cm. The measured inverse scattering length on bubbles decreases linearly with increasing depth in the volume of ice investigated. © 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

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