Construction workers have carried out the first underground blasting for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, which will provide the space, infrastructure and particle beam for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. This prep work paves the way for removing more than 800,000 tons of rock to make space for the gigantic DUNE detector a mile underground.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has selected three Fermilab scientists to receive the 2020 DOE Early Career Research Award, now in its 11th year. The prestigious award is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
The biggest conference in neutrino physics kicks off on June 22, with two weeks of talks dedicated to one intriguing particle.
The 29th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics brings together thousands of researchers for the latest developments in the field.
We know that neutrinos aren’t massless, they’re just incredibly light — a million times lighter than the next lightest particle, the electron. And they don’t seem to get their mass in the same way as other particles in the Standard Model.
From Physics Today, June 1, 2020: Somewhere in the laws of physics, particles must be allowed to behave differently from their antiparticles. If they weren’t, the universe would contain equal amounts of matter and antimatter, all the particles and antiparticles would promptly annihilate one another, and none of us would exist. Fermilab’s NOvA neutrino experiment and the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, are pinning down CP violation, the property that could explain the imbalance.
From Sanford Underground Research Facility, May 26, 2020: Unwilling to ignore flaws in the Standard Model, physicists are looking for a new, more perfect model of the subatomic universe. And many are hoping that the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, can put their theories to the test.
From Gizmodo, May 18, 2020: Neutrino physics is a trek into the unknown, one that the United States physics community has chosen to pursue full-on. A flagship experiment called LBNF/DUNE will lead the search, in pursuit of answers that may take decades or more to find. Fermilab Deputy Director for Research Joe Lykken, DUNE spokesperson Ed Blucher, and DUNE scientists Chang Kee Jung and Elizabeth Worcester talk about how neutrinos will enhance our understanding of the universe.
From Sanford Underground Research Facility, May 19, 2020: The international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, will be tuned to see neutrinos streaming from a nearby supernova. Such neutrino interactions could give researchers insight into one of the explosive processes that formed the elements in our solar system and our planet.
From the University of Bern, May 2020: The University of Bern and Fermilab partner on three neutrino projects aimed at a thorough study of some postulated properties of the ghostly particle: MicroBooNE, SBND and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, the latter to be considered the world’s ultimate neutrino observatory.