In the news – DUNE media

Fermi Research Alliance awarded Prof. Yasar Onel, from the University of Iowa, a grant to design a helium gas regulation system for neutrinos at the Main Injector beam monitors at Fermilab. The grant also allows for work on a gas regulation design study, prototype and consultation on a gas regulator system for the DUNE NuMI beam monitors.

Catching ghost particles

Although neutrinos are the most common matter particle in the universe they are also known as ghost particles because they move through our bodies every second without ever interacting with us. Neutrinos won’t be scaring anyone on Halloween but they will be studied by scientists in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment led by Fermilab.

Plans are moving ahead for the liquid nitrogen refrigeration system which will use liquid nitrogen to cool the 17,500 tons of liquid argon that will fill the neutrino detectors at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility in the Sanford Lab. The system is expected to be built by 2026, and operational underground by the end of 2026 to support the installation of some detector elements, and the operations of the full facility starting in early 2028.

From Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, July 25, 2023: PNNL scientists and a team of university and national laboratory collaborators recently published a paper detailing a new detector design that can be fine-tuned to increase sensitivity to physics beyond the original DUNE concept.

From PNNL, July 25, 2023: PNNL researchers and a team of university and national laboratory collaborators recently published a paper detailing a new detector design that can be fine-tuned to increase sensitivity to physics beyond the original DUNE concept. The new detector, named SLoMo, will enhances DUNE’s sensitivity to neutrinos emitted from sources other than the beam of neutrinos created at Fermilab.

From CERN, June 13, 2023: Teams at CERN’s Neutrino Platform are currently upgrading and assembling multiple detectors to help large experiments like the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment to uncover the mysteries of neutrinos. But before the full-size detectors are built, CERN has created the large cryostat modules of the ProtoDUNE experiment. The Neutrino Platform is also an assembly station for the Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) experiment in Japan.

From Laser Focus World, Jan. 12, 2023: What does the future of detectors look like and what problems will they solve? Advances in novel detectors are working on some of the most elusive mysteries in science—from quantum teleportation to neutrinos and dark matter. The long-baseline neutrino detectors of DUNE are part of this line up of international detectors.

From the Rapid City Journal, Jan. 12, 2023: An interview with Fermilab project manager Joshua Willhite on the excavation of the caverns for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) being built under the Black Hills of South Dakota at SURF. Willhite is a mechanical engineering graduate of the South Dakota Mines university who spoke with him about his love of engineering and how the program at SD Mines led to his work on DUNE. This article is an adaptation of the South Dakota Mines story that published on Jan. 10.