Status and first results of the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES detector is the most sensitive neutrino telescope observing the southern sky and the world's first particle detector operating in the deep sea. It is installed in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2475 m. As example for the first results, the determination of the atmospheric muon flux is discussed; a fair agreement with previous measurements is found. Furthermore, the results of a search for high-energy events in excess of the atmospheric neutrino flux are reported and significant limits are set on the diffuse cosmic neutrino flux in the multi-TeV to PeV energy range. Using data taken during the construction phase, a first analysis searching for point-like excesses in the neutrino sky distribution has been performed. The resulting sensitivity of ANTARES is reported and compared to measurements of other detectors. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.