Measurement of optical water properties using stopping muons in KM3NeT/ORCA

The KM3NeT Collaboration is currently building two neutrino detectors in the Mediterranean Sea. The KM3NeT/ARCA telescope is located off-shore Sicily, Italy, at a depth of about 3.5 km, designed to study cosmic neutrinos. KM3NeT/ORCA is being built off-shore Toulon, France, at a depth of about 2.5 km, with the main physics objective being the determination of the neutrino mass ordering and the precise measurement of oscillation parameters. Optical water properties and light detection efficiency are among the main systematic uncertainties for these objectives. In this work, reconstructed atmospheric muons stopping within KM3NeT/ORCA are studied in order to constrain these uncertainties. Such muons lose energy predominantly through ionisation, which makes them an eligible light source for this study. The improved constraints on these uncertainties will result in better sensitivities in neutrino oscillation studies.