Laza Rakotondravohitra was the first Malagasy grad student to conduct research in neutrino physics. He and others are working to ensure he will be far from the last.
LBNF/DUNE
From Physics Today: Snowmass 2022 this past July took place over 10 days with almost 1,200 people participating online and in person at the University of Washington. It involved 511 white papers spanning 10 “frontier” areas. This once-a-decade meeting also reaffirmed support for completing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) and the affiliated Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility to carry our DUNE’s science goals.
Excavation of the large caverns for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility is in full swing. Over a third of the whopping 800,000 tons that need to be extracted from a mile underground have been removed. When finished, the underground facility will cover an area about the size of eight soccer fields and provide space for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.
From Phys.org, August 3, 2022: Fermilab’s NOvA experiment reports analysis on oscillation data delivering some of the most accurate estimates to date describing neutrino oscillations and providing important hints on two important aspects of neutrino physics—the ordering of neutrino masses and the degree of charge-parity (CP) violation. These results set the stage for the next generation of “long-baseline” experiments, like Hyper-K and DUNE, which will dramatically boost our ability to probe elusive aspects of neutrino physics.
From Physics Today, July 2022: Anne Heavey, senior technical editor at Fermilab describes how teams from around the world are developing and constructing detector components for the world’s largest cryogenic particle detector, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).
Lia Merminga, an internationally renowned physicist and scientific leader, has been appointed to lead the U.S.’ premier particle physics and accelerator lab, effective April 18. Merminga will be the seventh director of Fermilab and the first woman to serve in the role.
The career of Elaine McCluskey, who most recently served as project manager constructing the future facility for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, has had a lasting impact.
From the Rapid City Journal, January 20, 2022: A 2021 economic study done for SURF and the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority shows the large economic impacts in advancing South Dakota’s economy. The impacts include job creation, household earnings, and spending for activities and experiments at SURF and the LBNF/DUNE. The partnership with Fermilab to construct and operate part of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility at SURF will result in significant spending and employment in South Dakota in the coming decades.
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.
From PBS, October 6, 9:00 pm CT: Tune in to the PBS premiere of Particles Unknown-the hunt for the universe’s most common yet elusive particle, this Wednesday on your local PBS channel. Starting with Ray Davis’ quest for neutrinos that began in 1965, Nova explores Fermilab’s search for sterile neutrinos and interviews Sam Zeller and Angela Fava from the Neutrino Division. Check your local PBS station programming to confirm the date and time of Particles Unknown.