Fermilab and SURF team up for neutrino research

Shishir Shetty grew up in India and studied aeronautical engineering. In 2013, he came to the United States for his Master’s degree. Originally working on projects related to aircraft structures in school, Shetty became interested in Fermilab due to his interest in building structures from scratch and the exceptional engineering environment at the lab

This year, Shetty is organizing activities for Engineers Week at Fermilab as the co-chair of the laboratory’s Engineering Advisory Council.

“The ecosystem we have is unique,” said Shetty, who joined Fermilab in 2017. He appreciates that Fermilab brings together people of all ages, nationalities and genders and provides guidance that empowers them to solve problems in ways they think would work best and be most efficient. “You get to make tangible impact in the whole life cycle of a project.”

At Fermilab, the level of detail of engineering needed to go into the tasks that engineers pursue is high. Describing it as “engineering refinement at its best,” Shetty explained how such high-precision engineering cannot have any wiggle room in the variables. The deliverables of a project are often subject to extreme requirements. “The conditions are extraordinary,” he said.

A favorite design project that Shetty worked on was the transport system for a delicate neutrino detection system built for the Short-Baseline Near Detector at Fermilab. The move was very complex because the transport had many limiting conditions: There could be no significant vibration, no moisture seeping into the detection system. No dust and no light were allowed to enter. And the engineers had to account for the detector’s high center of gravity. The team designed a special transport frame and—very slowly—moved the detector on a trailer from the assembly facility to the research facility. “To put it together was an almost insurmountable task,” he said.

When Shetty was first applying to work at Fermilab, one thing that stood out to him was how at Fermilab the engineers were building many unique structures from scratch. This process involved conceiving the project, looking for the whole life cycle of a project from engineering analysis to fabrication and testing, and then delivering it. He also appreciates the culture at Fermilab: he thinks people working here have a mission in mind and are motivated for science; the problems they are solving are rigorous. “It’s extremely challenging. The challenges that you get, and the ways you solve them, and the aptitude of the people around you are mind boggling.”

Mayling Wong-Squires is Fermilab’s chief engineer and head of the Mechanical Support Department in the Accelerator Directorate. She has worked at Fermilab for over 25 years.

“Engineers at Fermilab work on a wide breadth and depth of technical work, such as maintaining the operations of particle accelerators and experiments, laying groundwork research in artificial intelligence, quantum and microelectronics, designing future accelerators and experiments, and maintaining the infrastructure of the lab,” said Wong-Squires. “For many projects, Fermilab engineers cannot just go out and buy equipment from the local hardware store.” Instead, they either ask vendors to push the limits of their technology or they outright design it themselves.

“That’s what makes working at Fermilab challenging and fun,” Wong-Squires said. “It requires engineers to return to textbooks from college. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they innovate, and then they might end up writing the future textbook. It’s what we’re proud of here.”

Engineers Week

Engineers Week, founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, is a weeklong event that takes place yearly every February. At Fermilab, the week serves as a time for engineers to convene and attend various activities and presentations.

Among the events offered for employees, users and contractors this year will be a plenary session with three divisions. One will bring together engineers from many disciplines to talk about the accomplishments of the past year; another will commemorate Helen Edwards, who was a lead figure in the design of the Tevatron at Fermilab; the third will feature keynote speaker Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Fermilab’s Integrated Engineering Research Center will feature posters and engineering exhibitions from both Fermilab and external groups.

Other events include a hackathon, which will provide creative, innovative time for engineers to work on a project of their own choosing. There will also be tours of underground and experimental areas at Fermilab intended for engineers who joined the laboratory in recent years.

“Engineering is all about observing things around us,” Shetty said. He went on to explain that, for him, engineering cannot be isolated to simply assignments done in the workplace. “It goes beyond,” Shetty said. “It is a part of your life, your observation of things, how they work, how they come together.”

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

 

India’s Department of Atomic Energy, or DAE, reached a milestone in their participation in building a 215-meter-long particle accelerator in the United States, known as the Proton Improvement Plan II project, or PIP-II. DAE recently informed the U.S. Department of Energy that India is officially moving from the research and development phase to the construction phase for its contributions to the PIP-II project at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

This significant transition solidifies a scientific partnership between the United States and India that has been nearly 20 years in the making. DAE institutions now can start to construct the components that they will send to the U.S. to enable the PIP-II project.

Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India Ajit Kumar Mohanty stated, “The sustained collaborative efforts during the research and development phase of PIP-II have validated and demonstrated many interesting and exciting developments that would be very important for building next generation accelerators for science and technological applications in India. The success of the research and development phase have facilitated the smooth transition to the construction phase of PIP-II. This success has also provided very high confidence in reaffirming our commitment of in-kind contribution of $140 million and extending all possible support till scheduled completion of PIP-II activities successfully.”

In June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and U.S. President Joe Biden met to deepen bilateral cooperation between the two countries on cutting-edge scientific infrastructures. The resulting White House statement (item no. 10) highlighted DAE’s in-kind contribution toward the collaborative development of the PIP-II accelerator.

“We are very excited about India’s critical technical contributions to the Proton Improvement Plan II project at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. These contributions will help to deliver a record-setting proton beam that will power scientific discoveries for years to come,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, DOE’s director of the Office of Science. “We look forward to continuing this longstanding partnership between India’s Department of Atomic Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy.”

The PIP-II project is building a state-of-the-art superconducting linear accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago. It will enable the world’s most intense beam of neutrinos that scientists will shoot from Fermilab in Illinois to the gigantic particle detectors of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment in Lead, South Dakota. DUNE will be the most comprehensive neutrino experiment ever built, with the goal of uncovering secrets of the universe by studying the properties of the elusive neutrinos.

“We are thrilled that our partners in India have reached this major milestone in their PIP-II participation,” said Fermilab Director Lia Merminga. “Many people have worked hard for years to make sure this partnership could thrive. We at Fermilab value deeply the expertise and capabilities of our colleagues in India and I look forward to working with the DAE institutions to build the PIP-II particle accelerator.”

The PIP-II partnership is a symbiotic relationship and part of the Indian Institutions and Fermilab Collaboration. While providing next generation accelerator capabilities, the collaboration on PIP-II also provides Indian scientists and engineers the training, technical insight and know-how for the development of their domestic particle accelerator program and future projects.

PIP-II is the first particle accelerator on U.S. soil to be built with significant contributions from international partners. Institutions in France, India, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom are contributing technologies, instrumentation and expertise to build the accelerator.

In India, participating institutions include the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, the Inter-University Accelerator Centre in New Delhi, the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore, and the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre in Kolkata.

Many of these Indian institutions will provide a significant number of technical components for PIP-II, including superconducting acceleration structures, electromagnets and radio-frequency power sources. These will be fabricated in India and transported to Fermilab for installation.

 

 

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

Chicago-based composer and accomplished pianist Mischa Zupko has been named 2024 guest composer by the Fermi Research Alliance. In collaboration with scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Civitas Ensemble in Chicago and saxophonist Timothy McAllister, he will create music to interpret particle science in new ways.

“From what I have come to understand, the ability to imagine, in a physical sense, phenomena relating to the behavior and interaction of elementary particles is impossible, but the attempt to imagine, is where the beauty lies,” he said.

For many of his compositions, Zupko draws inspiration from themes of the universe, cosmic phenomena and mathematical models. Eclipse: Chamber Music of Mischa Zupko, with violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner, was recorded by Cedille Records in 2016 and conveys the alignment of the sun and moon, while the evening sky is the focal point in his cello piece From Twilight. Zupko stated in his guest composer proposal that these subjects are “spiritual” to him and to the music that he writes. He is eager to work with Fermilab scientists to musically explore projects such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

Zupko will not only collaborate with scientists on his Fermilab composition, but also with fellow chamber musicians Winston Choi, piano; Yuan-Qing Yu, violin; and Ken Olsen, cello, who are the members of the Civitas Ensemble, and guest Timothy McAllister, saxophone. While Zupko wrote Eclipse based on a specific mathematical model that he constructed, he hopes to compose his Fermilab piece based on a scientific model.  He plans to include the completed composition as a world premiere recording on Cedille Records for a new release of his work in 2026.

“Though the mathematics [represented by Eclipse] are simple, they were essential in the process to achieve the very specific effect this piece intended and informed the intuitive aspects of the writing in profound ways,” he said. “I have always wanted to go deeper into this process, modeling numeric sequences on actual data from running experiments to see if the data itself can serve as a link between the various ways we experience our reality.”

Zupko is a third-generation composer. He received a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Northwestern University, and a master’s degree and a doctorate in composition from Indiana University Bloomington. He has been named guest artist and participated in residency programs at various institutions, including the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the Music Institute of Chicago, Western Michigan University, and Roosevelt University. Zupko has most recently had his music performed at Chamber Music Northwest, the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference, and the Grant Park Music Festival in Millennium Park, among others. Since 2010, he has served as lecturer of musicianship studies at DePaul University.

“Mischa Zupko’s profound grasp of musical theory and composition coupled with a longstanding curiosity about particle physics, along with previous compositions inspired by cosmic phenomena, renders him the ideal choice as the 2024 FRA guest composer at Fermilab,” said Visual Arts Coordinator Georgia Schwender, who manages the FRA guest composer program at Fermilab on behalf of FRA.

Editor’s note: Work created by former FRA guest composers and artists are featured in the public exhibition Beyond the Visible at the Schingoethe Center of Aurora University Jan. 29 – May 10, 2024. The exhibition will highlight Fermilab-inspired work by Mare Hirsch, David Ibbett, Jim Jenkins, Chris Klapper & Patrick Gallagher, Ricardo Mondragon, Ellen Sandor and Roger Zare.

The FRA guest composer program at Fermilab is funded by the Fermi Research Alliance, which manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.