High energy neutrino astronomy with ANTARES

ANTARES aims to open a new window on the universe through the observation of neutrinos of astrophysical origin over an energy range spanning 6 orders of magnitude (10 GeV to 10 PeV). These observations should provide complementary information, that might be difficult or even impossible to obtain through gamma or cosmic ray observations, on Active Galactic Nuclei, Gamma Ray Bursters, pulsars, X-ray binaries, young supernovae remnants and possibly other high energy neutrino sources. In addition, neutrinos from WIMP annihilation in the center of the Sun or Earth should provide a very sensitive dark matter search which would cover most of the allowed SUSY parameter space, given the constraint of our halo being dominated by neutralinos. To fulfill this scientific promise a km(2) size detector is required and ANTARES plans to build such a detector at a yet unspecified site in the mediterranean sea. Over the next two years a small-scale prototype detector will be deployed at a depth of 2.5 km at a test site near Toulon, France. In parallel with this activity, the optimal site for the large-scale detector will be chosen according to the results obtained by autonomous test strings deployed at various potential sites.