Papers by Salvatore Viola
Proceedings of 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2023)
The KM3NeT/ARCA calibration unit is a dedicated calibration system designed to improve the accura... more The KM3NeT/ARCA calibration unit is a dedicated calibration system designed to improve the accuracy of the acoustic positioning system of the detector optical modules and monitor the water column physical properties. The calibration unit is composed of a calibration base and an instrumentation unit, connected with an electrical inter-link cable. The deployment of one calibration unit for each of the two building-blocks, in which the ARCA detector is subdivided, is foreseen, with the first one to be deployed in 2024. The calibration base is made of an anchoring structure, connected for power supply and communication to a junction-box, where an acoustic beacon and a hydrophone used for the positioning system are mounted and which hosts a pressure vessel containing the required electronics. The instrumentation unit consists of an anchoring base and a 750m-long inductive line, kept vertical by a top buoy and equipped with oceanographic sensors. The base is linked to the calibration base for power and readout and hosts an absolute pressure gauge used as depth reference and a vessel containing the electronics for managing sensor communication. The line hosts two sound velocimeters and two conductivity-temperature-depth probes equipped with dissolved oxygen sensors, to measure sound velocity and allow for the determination of acoustic wave speed, and two Doppler current sensors to provide information on sea current speed and direction, further improving the accuracy of the positioning system.
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Apr 1, 2023
Since 2015 the LIGO and Virgo interferometers have detected gravitational waves from almost one h... more Since 2015 the LIGO and Virgo interferometers have detected gravitational waves from almost one hundred coalescences of compact objects (black holes and neutron stars). This article presents the results of a search performed with data from the ANTARES telescope to identify neutrino counterparts to the gravitational wave sources detected during the third LIGO/Virgo observing run and reported in the catalogues GWTC-2, GWTC-2.1, and GWTC-3. This search is sensitive to all-sky neutrinos of all flavours and of energies > 100 GeV, thanks to the inclusion of both track-like events (mainly induced by ν µ chargedcurrent interactions) and shower-like events (induced by other interaction types). Neutrinos are selected if they are detected within ±500 s from the GW merger and with a reconstructed direction compatible with its sky localisation. No significant excess is found for any of the 80 analysed GW events, and upper limits on the neutrino emission are derived. Using the information from the GW catalogues and assuming isotropic emission, upper limits on the total energy E tot,ν emitted as neutrinos of all flavours and on the ratio f ν = E tot,ν /E GW between neutrino and GW emissions are also computed. Finally, a stacked analysis of all the 72 binary black hole mergers (respectively the 7 neutron star-black hole merger candidates) has been performed to constrain the typical neutrino emission within this population, leading to the limits: E tot,ν < 4.0 × 10 53 erg and f ν < 0.15 (respectively, E tot,ν < 3.2 × 10 53 erg and f ν < 0.88) for E −2 spectrum and isotropic emission. Other assumptions including softer spectra and non-isotropic scenarios have also been tested.
2022 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea; Learning to Measure Sea Health Parameters (MetroSea), Oct 3, 2022
The Astrophysical Journal
In the quest for high-energy neutrino sources, the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Netwo... more In the quest for high-energy neutrino sources, the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network has implemented a new search by combining data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory and the Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch (ANTARES) neutrino telescope. Using the same analysis strategy as in a previous detector combination of HAWC and IceCube data, we perform a search for coincidences in HAWC and ANTARES events that are below the threshold for sending public alerts in each individual detector. Data were collected between 2015 July and 2020 February with a live time of 4.39 yr. Over this time period, three coincident events with an estimated false-alarm rate of <1 coincidence per year were found. This number is consistent with background expectations.
The Astrophysical Journal, 2020
A search for point-like and extended sources of cosmic neutrinos using data collected by the ANTA... more A search for point-like and extended sources of cosmic neutrinos using data collected by the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes is presented. The data set consists of all the track-like and shower-like events pointing in the direction of the Southern Sky included in the nine-year ANTARES point-source analysis, combined with the throughgoing track-like events used in the seven-year IceCube point-source search. The advantageous field of view of ANTARES and the large size of IceCube are exploited to improve the sensitivity in the Southern Sky by a factor of∼2 compared to both individual analyses. In this work, the Southern Sky is scanned for possible excesses of spatial clustering, and the positions of preselected candidate sources are investigated. In addition, special focus is given to the region around the Galactic Center, whereby a dedicated search at the location of SgrA * is performed, and to the location of the supernova remnant RXJ 1713.7-3946. No significant evidence for cosmic neutrino sources is found, and upper limits on the flux from the various searches are presented.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 2017
The EMSO Research Infrastructure operates multidisciplinary seafloor-cabled observatories in a de... more The EMSO Research Infrastructure operates multidisciplinary seafloor-cabled observatories in a deep-sea area offshore Eastern Sicily (2100 m of depth). In a data-lacking zone, Passive Acoustic Monitoring activities revealed new information on cetacean bioacoustics over multiple ecological scales. Expert operators investigated the presence of cetacean vocalizations within the large acoustic datasets acquired. Then, algorithms were developed to provide information on the behavior and ecology of the recorded species. In 2005-2006, the acoustic activity of toothed whales was investigated through the OvDE antenna (100 Hz to 48 kHz). The assessment of the size distribution of sperm whales was acoustically possible and the tracking of the animals showed the direction of movement and the diving profile. The biosonar activity of dolphins resulted mostly confined in the nighttime, linked to seasonal variation in daylight time and prey-field variability known for these deep-pelagic waters. Furthermore, in 2012-2013, we monitored the annual acoustic presence of fin whales thanks to the NEMO-SN1 station (1 Hz to 1 kHz). The results showed that the species was present throughout all seasons, with peaks in call detection rate during spring and summer months, and that the fin whale calls were mostly detected in low background noise conditions.
PLOS ONE, Sep 28, 2015
This dataset is form the study: Sciacca V., Caruso F.,Beranzoli L., Chierici F., De Domenico E., ... more This dataset is form the study: Sciacca V., Caruso F.,Beranzoli L., Chierici F., De Domenico E., Embriaco D., Favali P., Giovanetti G., Larosa G., Marinaro G., Papale E., Pavan G., Pellegrino C., Pulvirenti S., Simeone F., Viola S., and G. Riccobene. "Annual Acoustic Presence of Fin Whale (<em>Balaenoptera physalus</em>) Offshore Eastern Sicily, Central Mediterranean Sea." PLoS ONE 10(11): e0141838. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141838 The archives labeled YYYYMM_Spectrograms.zip contain the data from each month of passive acoustic recording -MM- of the years -YYYY- 2012 and 2013. Data consist of the spectrograms (1-50 Hz) of 10-min audio recordings, in PNG format files. These data were used in the cited study to verify the presence of fin whale calls. The archive labeled "NoiseData.zip" consists of two matrix (ASCII format) containing the recorded values of acoustic noise within the fin whale call frequency band.
PLOS ONE, Nov 4, 2015
This dataset is from the study: Caruso Francesco, Virginia Sciacca, Giorgio Bellia, Emilio De Dom... more This dataset is from the study: Caruso Francesco, Virginia Sciacca, Giorgio Bellia, Emilio De Domenico, Giuseppina Larosa, Elena Papale, Carmelo Pellegrino, Sara Pulvirenti, Giorgio Riccobene, Francesco Simeone, Fabrizio Speziale, Salvatore Viola and Gianni Pavan. "Size Distribution of Sperm Whales Acoustically Identified During Long Term Deep-Sea Monitoring in the Ionian Sea." The archive named NEMO-OvDE Dataset.zip contains the results of an automatic analysis developed and applied to the data acquired by the Ocean noise Detection Experiment. In detail, a subsample of the large dataset was processed to assess the size of the recorded sperm whales, by measuring the structure of their acoustic signals. The dataset consists in several plots generated by the algorithm described in the cited research article. The files are in PNG format. These data were used to study the size distribution of the sperm whale recorded during the OvDE Passive Acoustic Monitoring. For further information: [email protected] (Principal Investigator of the Ocean noise Detection Experiment)
The Astrophysical Journal
For several decades, the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) has been an unsolved qu... more For several decades, the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) has been an unsolved question of high-energy astrophysics. One approach for solving this puzzle is to correlate UHECRs with high-energy neutrinos, since neutrinos are a direct probe of hadronic interactions of cosmic rays and are not deflected by magnetic fields. In this paper, we present three different approaches for correlating the arrival directions of neutrinos with the arrival directions of UHECRs. The neutrino data are provided by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and ANTARES, while the UHECR data with energies above ∼50 EeV are provided by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. All experiments provide increased statistics and improved reconstructions with respect to our previous results reported in 2015. The first analysis uses a high-statistics neutrino sample optimized for point-source searches to search for excesses of neutrino clustering in the vicinity of UHECR directions. The second...
The European Physical Journal C
The KM3NeT research infrastructure is unconstruction in the Mediterranean Sea. KM3NeT will study ... more The KM3NeT research infrastructure is unconstruction in the Mediterranean Sea. KM3NeT will study atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos with two multi-purpose neutrino detectors, ARCA and ORCA, primarily aimed at GeV–PeV neutrinos. Thanks to the multi-photomultiplier tube design of the digital optical modules, KM3NeT is capable of detecting the neutrino burst from a Galactic or near-Galactic core-collapse supernova. This potential is already exploitable with the first detection units deployed in the sea. This paper describes the real-time implementation of the supernova neutrino search, operating on the two KM3NeT detectors since the first months of 2019. A quasi-online astronomy analysis is introduced to study the time profile of the detected neutrinos for especially significant events. The mechanism of generation and distribution of alerts, as well as the integration into the SNEWS and SNEWS 2.0 global alert systems, are described. The approach for the follow-up of external alert...
Journal of Instrumentation
The optical module of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope is an innovative multi-faceted large area pho... more The optical module of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope is an innovative multi-faceted large area photodetection module. It contains 31 three-inch photomultiplier tubes in a single 0.44 m diameter pressure-resistant glass sphere. The module is a sensory device also comprising calibration instruments and electronics for power, readout and data acquisition. It is capped with a breakout-box with electronics for connection to an electro-optical cable for power and long-distance communication to the onshore control station. The design of the module was qualified for the first time in the deep sea in 2013. Since then, the technology has been further improved to meet requirements of scalability, cost-effectiveness and high reliability. The module features a sub-nanosecond timing accuracy and a dynamic range allowing the measurement of a single photon up to a cascade of thousands of photons, suited for the measurement of the Cherenkov radiation induced in water by secondary particles from inter...
Davide Embriaco (1), Giuditta Marinaro (1), Stephen Monna (1), Nadia Lo Bue (1), Gabriele Giovane... more Davide Embriaco (1), Giuditta Marinaro (1), Stephen Monna (1), Nadia Lo Bue (1), Gabriele Giovanetti (1), Mariagrazia De Caro (1), Angelo De Santis (1), Tiziana Sgroi (1), Francesco Frugoni (1), Caterina Montuori (1), Giorgio Riccobene (2), Salvo Viola (2), Virginia Sciacca (2,3), Sara Pulvirenti (2), Francesco Caruso (2), Francesco Simeone (4), Francesco Chierici (1,5,6), Antonio D’Amico (7), Laura Beranzoli (1), and Paolo Favali (1)
2022 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea; Learning to Measure Sea Health Parameters (MetroSea)
2019 26th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS), 2019
This paper investigates a promising experimental technique for proton beams range verification ba... more This paper investigates a promising experimental technique for proton beams range verification based on Time-of-Flight (ToF) measurements of the acoustic waves emitted by the fast energy deposition occurring at the end of the particle range. In the field of oncological hadron therapy, the ionoacoustic ranging technique promises better precision than Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and opens the possibility of real-time beam monitoring, thus increasing treatment efficacy. The proposed technique has already proven to provide sub-mm accuracy at sub-clinical energies and to rely on smart and smaller (and hence more efficient) electronics instrumentation w.r.t. PET. However, state-of-the-art experiments lacks dedicated analog and digital electronics and heavily rely on offline noise rejection algorithms to achieve sub-mm precision. In this scenario, this work presents a complete analog-digital front-end dedicated to ionoacoustic experiments that improves the signal-to-noise ratio of a traditional non-dedicated systems by 6 dB and thus increments the measurement precision for a given deposited dose. The proposed system has been validated by both behavioral simulations and experimental data taken at the Maier-Leibniz Laboratories, where using the presented system a clear acoustic signal of 5 Pa amplitude and 2.3 MHz frequency has been detected at 11 dB Signal-to-Noise-Ratio with a 19.5 MeV proton beam in a water phantom target. ToF measurements allowed to determine the Bragg Peak position with $24\ \mu \mathrm{m}$ precision and $26\ \mu \mathrm{m}$ accuracy w.r.t. Geant4 simulations while delivering a total Bragg Peak dose of 0.8 Gy.
2022 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea; Learning to Measure Sea Health Parameters (MetroSea)
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Four different Marine Rapid Environmental Assessment (MREA) procedures are compared with a focus ... more Four different Marine Rapid Environmental Assessment (MREA) procedures are compared with a focus on underwater acoustic performance. Co-located oceanographic-acoustic data were collected during the summer of 2015 in the Northwestern Mediterranean in the framework of a sea trial led by the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation. The data were used to link MREA procedures and ocean-acoustic validation in a seamless framework. The MREA procedures consider Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) data, operational products from the Copernicus Marine Service, and two dynamical downscaling systems (with and without data assimilation). A portion of the oceanographic data are used for the assimilation procedure, and the remaining portion is withheld from the assimilation system for use as an independent verifying dataset. The accuracy of modelled acoustic properties is evaluated using the sound speed estimates from the different MREA methodologies as inputs to an acoustic model, ...
In recent years, an increasing number of surveys have definitively confirmed the seasonal presenc... more In recent years, an increasing number of surveys have definitively confirmed the seasonal presence of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in highly productive regions of the Mediter-ranean Sea. Despite this, very little is yet known about the routes that the species season-ally follows within the Mediterranean basin and, particularly, in the Ionian area. The present study assesses for the first time fin whale acoustic presence offshore Eastern Sicily (Ionian Sea), throughout the processing of about 10 months of continuous acoustic monitoring. The recording of fin whale vocalizations was made possible by the cabled deep-sea multidisci-plinary observatory, “NEMO-SN1”, deployed 25 km off the Catania harbor at a depth of about 2,100 meters. NEMO-SN1 is an operational node of the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) Research Infrastructure. The observatory was equipped with a low-frequency hydrophone (bandwidth: 0.05 Hz–1 kHz, sampling rate:
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Papers by Salvatore Viola