Since ICRC 2019, the Baikal Collaboration hasn’t posted papers on arXiv because analyses of the first data taken with Baikal-GVD were still ongoing. Now a talk of Dmitry Zaborov from INR Moscow with the title High-energy neutrino astronomy and the Baikal-GVD neutrino telescope has been posted at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.09209.pdf.

The paper reviews the scientific case for Baikal-GVD, the construction plan, and first results from the initial configuration (meanwhile about 2000 optical modules at 56 strings). Results include the zenith angle distribution for the first sample of upward moving muons from neutrino interactions, as well as a smaller sample of energetic cascade events, where one of them comes from below horizon and has an energy deposit of 91±10 TeV. This appears to be a very clear neutrino candidate, with a high chance to be of astrophysical origin (see the reports in previous GNN Monthly editions).

Preparation of the Baikal deployment campaign from February to April is well underway. All optical modules for the two news clusters have been assembled, and half of them already arrived in the town Baikalsk. The electronic modules (section-, string- and cluster-controllers) have also been fully assembled and are under long-term test in Moscow.

The autumn collaboration meeting (online) took place from November 30 to December 4.

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