Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

From Innovation News Network, February 25, 2022: PIP-II project director Lia Merminga discusses the Fermilab accelerator complex upgrade being done in collaboration with research institutions in India, the UK, Italy, France, and Poland. Read more about the current status of PIP-II project, what it sets out to achieve and the impacts PIP-II will have on the future of particle physics research.

CERN deepens its collaboration with the US-based neutrino experiment with the provision of two enormous stainless-steel vessels for DUNE’s cutting-edge liquid-argon detectors.

Two crew members stand with the drill underground.

Construction crews will excavate around 800,000 tons of rock to make space for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. But first, teams must carve out a quarter-mile-high ventilation shaft.

Three factoid cards, which look similar to playing cards or a baseball card, appear on a background of stars in a night sky (or in outer space) in a cartoon rendering. On each of the cards is a circle adjusted its sunglasses, presumably each a type of neutrino. Underneath these images on the cards are scribbles representing text and a question mark. In the upper left corner, the abbreviations for electron neutrino, a muon neutrino or a tau neutrino appear.

Figuring out which type of neutrino is heaviest, or solving the puzzle of neutrino mass hierarchy, would be a huge leap in our understanding of both neutrinos and the physics that govern our universe. The NoVA experiment or DUNE could help physicists do just that.

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

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.