Engineers are preparing to assemble the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment’s detectors in a former South Dakota gold mine. Components are moving underground ahead of a construction effort expected to last years. A neutrino beam from Illinois will eventually probe particle behaviour over a journey of about 1,300 kilometres.
Engineers are preparing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, DUNE, beneath Lead, South Dakota. Detector components are arriving and structural steel is being moved underground for the huge insulated vessels that will hold liquid argon. Assembly of four detectors is scheduled to begin on Monday, November 2, in caverns beneath the former Homestake gold mine.[1], [2]
The detectors are planned to contain 70,000 tonnes of liquid argon in total. Neutrinos sent from Fermilab in Illinois will travel about 1,300 kilometres through Earth to reach them. Most particles will pass through; rare interactions with argon will produce light and electric charge. Researchers will use those signals to examine neutrino mass ordering and differences between neutrinos and antineutrinos.[1]
Assembly is expected to take nearly three years, followed by another year for filling. The structures will use more than 4,000 tonnes of steel and reach up to five storeys high. The mine closed in 2001 before becoming the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The United Kingdom, the largest international partner in the US-led project, is supplying detector components and computing infrastructure.[1]
