Construction crews start lowering equipment a mile underground for excavation for DUNE

An orange and silver drill rig (a tractor-like apparatus with two parallel arms that reach above the cab and then make a steep diagonal to the ground) and several red and silver drill rigs sit in the foreground of a silty construction site. Other equipment is in the midground and hills filled with evergreens and blue sky above in the background.

Construction crews start lowering equipment a mile underground for excavation for DUNE

Fermilab feature

How do you build a ship in a bottle? Everything necessary to construct the enormous Fermilab-hosted international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment must fit down a narrow, mile-deep shaft cut through solid rock. Contractors have started the months-long process of disassembling excavation equipment and lowering it underground.

At an angle from the second floor looking down into a rectangle of multi-colored, interconnected pipes.

ICARUS gets ready to fly

Fermilab feature

The ICARUS detector, part of Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, will officially start its hunt for elusive sterile neutrinos this fall. The international collaboration led by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia successfully brought the detector online and is now collecting test data and making final improvements.

A person wearing a hardhat stands inside a bright yellow honeycomb-like box that appears to be two or three times their height.

Argonaut project launches design effort for super-cold robotics

Fermilab scientists are developing one of the most cold-tolerant robots ever made so they can monitor the interiors of particle detectors. The project has already garnered some interest from engineers at other research institutions, including NASA.

A man in a dark suit and blue tie sits at a table with a blue tablecloth signing a document. Behind him to the right is a screen on which another man with a charcoal suit signs a document on a table with a blue tablecloth and a 16-story building and reflection pool in the background.

UK to play vital role in creating the world’s most powerful neutrino beam

The Science and Technology Facilities Council, or STFC, has signed an agreement with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, in the United States, designating how the two organizations will collaborate to build one of the world’s most powerful linear accelerators.

The conveyor belt taking the rocks from the crusher to the Open Cut passes close to the town of Lead, South Dakota. Image: Fermilab

Rock transportation system is ready for excavation of DUNE caverns

Fermilab feature

Fermilab contractors have successfully commissioned a system that will move 800,000 tons of rock to create space for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment’s detectors in South Dakota. Excavation crews will transport the rock from a mile underground to the surface using refurbished mining infrastructure and the newly constructed conveyor system.

Fermilab welcomes first baby bison of the year

The first baby bison of the season was born in the morning on April 26, 2021.

A simulated supernova neutrino interaction in the MicroBooNE detector, produced using MARLEY. This work lays a strong foundation for future supernova neutrino measurements with DUNE. Credit: MicroBooNE collaboration

Modeling collisions between argon nuclei and neutrinos from a supernova

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A new computer program called MARLEY simulates supernova neutrino interactions in argon-based particle detectors.

Gina Rameika elected DUNE co-spokesperson

Fermilab feature

On April 1, Gina Rameika assumed the role of co-spokesperson for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, elected by a collaboration of more than 1,000 physicists and engineers. DUNE, hosted by Fermilab, comprises people from more than 200 institutions in 33 countries.

The blue cylinder in this diagram represents a superconducting microwave cavity used to accumulate a dark matter signal. The purple is the qubit used to measure the state of the cavity, either 0 or 1. The value refers to the number of photons counted. If the dark matter has successfully deposited a photon in the cavity, the output would measure 1. No deposition of a photon would measure 0. Image: Akash Dixit, University of Chicago

Sensitive qubit-based technique to accelerate search for dark matter

Fermilab feature

Quantum bits acting as particle detectors offer a fast and highly reliable means of solving one of the great mysteries in physics: the nature of dark matter. This new method promises a more efficient way to detect dark matter candidates by improving the experimental signal-to-noise ratio.

New amplification algorithms expand the utility of quantum computers to handle non-Boolean scenarios, allowing for an extended range of values to characterize individual records, such as the scores assigned to each disk in the output superposition above. Illustration: Prasanth Shyamsundar

New computing algorithms expand the boundaries of a quantum future

Fermilab feature

To fully realize the potential of quantum computing, scientists must start with the basics: developing step-by-step procedures, or algorithms, for quantum computers to perform simple tasks. A Fermilab scientist has done just that, announcing two new algorithms that build upon existing work in the field to further diversify the types of problems quantum computers can solve.

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