From The Conversation, December 21, 2021: Aaron McGowan, Principal Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology explores research in 2021 in which physicists around the world ran a number of experiments that probed the Standard Model. From Higgs Boson, to Muon g-2 and the restart of the LHC at CERN, McGowan highlights some of the ways the Standard Model fails to explain every mystery of the universe.

Researchers from more than 50 countries collaborate with Fermilab to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time. Take a look at 10 ways Fermilab and its partners advanced science and technology in 2021.

The Secretary of Energy toured America’s premier particle physics and accelerator laboratory and discussed cutting-edge research on neutrinos, accelerators, quantum information science and more.

As part of the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, a UK-US collaboration is preparing for industrial scale production of large particle detector components. This fall, it’s taking the first ones for a final test-drive.

Employees from Thyssen Mining complete construction of a temporary work platform over the main ore pass on the 4850 level. All blasted rock from the project will be dumped down this pass before being hoisted to surface.
A robotic shotcrete applicator waits to be lowered into the newly excavated 12-foot diameter, 1,200-foot tall ventilation raise at the LBNF FSCF project in Lead, South Dakota.

To study the smallest things in nature, scientists build some enormous experiments. One example? The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which will use mile-deep detectors, each one as long as a jumbo jet, filled with almost 70,000 total tons of liquid argon. So how do scientists develop the massive, complicated equipment needed for big science? Neutrino physicists Kirsty Duffy and Bryan Ramson explain in this episode of Even Bananas.

From Rapid City Journal-Our Northern Hills, November 4, 2021: Excavation crews at the underground site of DUNE reached an important milestone. They completed the careful excavation of the ventilation shaft with just one drill bit during the entire four-and-a-half-month process. Crews also uncovered a 1-1/2 foot thick chunk of quartz crystal during the process that miraculously was not damaged by the reamer head, nor by the 300-foot fall it sustained, marking it a gem of the milestone.

In early October, crews completed the raise-bore drilling of the vertical ventilation shaft at the Lead, South Dakota, LBNF/DUNE project site and unexpectedly uncovered a geological treasure during the process.

Neutrinos are weird. Scientists didn’t expect them to change type as they travel, but they do! So how do we study this weird phenomenon of neutrino oscillation? On this episode, neutrino physicist Kirsty Duffy and special guest Anne Norrick will explore how to build a long-distance neutrino experiment.

From the Black Hills Pioneer, Sept. 2, 2021: Fermilab design manager for DUNE Joshua Willhet takes readers 4,850 feet underground to view and describe the excavation of the tunnels that will make way to the caverns of the LBNF for DUNE.