KM3NeT status and plans

The KM3NeT project is aiming to produce the most sensitive neutrino telescope ever built. Its envisaged location in the deep Mediterranean Sea provides optimal sensitivity for neutrino sources near the centre of our Galaxy. In 2010 a number of major decisions have been made on technical implementations of the telescope. An optical module containing many small (3″) photomultipliers was adopted. The readout electronics is incorporated into this digital optical module, as are several calibration instruments. The site-to-shore communication is provided by an electro-optical cable allowing for point-to-point communication between each optical module and the shore station carried on a single optical channel. A mechanical supporting structure consisting of twenty 6 m long bars with an optical module at each end is being designed. The bars have a vertical separation of 40 m, giving the full structure a height of about 900 m. The foreseen budget allows for construction of 300 such structural units. Together they will create an instrumented volume of 4 km3, when the layout is optimised for the detection of Galactic sources. The sensitivity to these point sources surpasses that of any other telescope by two orders of magnitude, and allows for a 5σ discovery in 5 years for RXJ1713.