Scientists have begun filling the ICARUS detector at Fermilab with liquid argon, moving one step closer toward neutrino oscillation measurements and the potential discovery of sterile neutrinos.
Short-Baseline Neutrino program
This assembly and transport frame is patiently awaiting completion in the DZero Assembly Building. When completed, it will enable the support and transport of the SBND detector to its final destination, the Short-Baseline Neutrino Near Detector hall, 110 meters from the Booster Neutrino Beam target. SBND is one of the three particle detectors that make up the Short-Baseline Neutrino program at Fermilab. A 4-by-4-by-5 meter detector, it will consist in a tank filled with liquid argon and a series of anode plane assemblies.
A collaboration with fewer than 100 members has played an important role in Fermilab’s ongoing partnership with Latin American scientists and institutions.
Fermilab and the University of Bern in Switzerland have signed an agreement to develop detector components for the laboratory’s neutrino experiments. The agreement is the first of its kind between Fermilab and a Swiss university.
From Science, Aug. 8, 2019: Fermilab physicists are resurrecting a massive particle detector by lowering it into a tomblike pit and embalming it with a chilly fluid. In August, workers eased two gleaming silver tanks bigger than shipping containers, the two halves of the detector, into a concrete-lined hole. Hauled from Europe two years ago, ICARUS will soon start a second life seeking perhaps the strangest particles physicists have dreamed up, oddballs called sterile neutrinos.
For over two decades, Spanish institutions have been collaborating with Fermilab. From the Tevatron era to the lab’s current neutrino experiments, Spain has made important contributions.
From Syracuse University, Dec. 20, 2018: Collaborators at Syracuse University are contributing components for Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Near Detector, one of three particle detectors in the Short-Baseline Neutrino program.
The upcoming Short-Baseline Near Detector at Fermilab continues scientists’ search for evidence of a hypothetical particle, the sterile neutrino. Collaborators around the world are participating in the detector’s construction. Its first critical components recently arrived from partner institutions. When complete, SBND will be the third and final detector in Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program.
From Forbes, Dec. 5, 2018: If there’s a fourth neutrino out there, Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program experiments will lead the way.
We already know neutrinos break the mold of the Standard Model. The question is: By how much?