Development of Acoustic Sensors for the Antares Experiment

In order to study the possibility of acoustic detection of ultra-high energy neutrinos in water, our group is planning to deploy and operate an array of acoustic sensors using the Antares Neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, acoustic sensor hardware has to be developed which is both capable of operation under the hostile conditions of the deep sea and at the same time provides the high sensitivity necessary to detect the weak pressure signals resulting from the neutrino's interaction in water. In this paper, two different approaches to building such sensors, as well as performance studies in the laboratory and in situ, are presented.