“The universe isn’t stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine.”
Physicist Arthur Eddington
Why is our universe composed of matter? How does an exploding star create a black hole? Are neutrinos connected to dark matter or other undiscovered particles?
The answers to these and many other mysteries about our universe may be one step closer, thanks to Batavia’s world-class Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab.
Excavation workers have finished carving out the future home of gigantic particle detectors for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Located a mile below the surface, the three colossal caverns are at the core of a new research facility that spans an underground area about the size of eight soccer fields.
The caverns provide space for four large neutrino detectors—each one about the size of a seven-story building. The detectors will be filled with liquid argon and record the rare interaction of neutrinos with the transparent liquid.
Trillions of neutrinos travel through our bodies each second without us even knowing it. With DUNE, scientists will look for neutrinos and examine the behavior of a neutrino beam produced at Fermilab, located near Chicago, about 800 miles east of the caverns. This will be the world’s most intense neutrino beam and will travel straight through earth from Fermilab to the detectors in South Dakota. No tunnel is necessary for the neutrinos’ path.
“The completion of the excavation of these enormous caverns is a significant achievement for this project,” said U.S. Project Director Chris Mossey. “Completing this step prepares the project for installation of the detectors later this year and brings us a step closer towards fulfilling the vision of making this a world-class underground facility.”
Workers will soon begin to outfit the caverns with the systems needed for the installation of the DUNE detectors and the daily operations of the research facility. Later this year, the project team plans to begin the installation of the insulated steel structure that will hold the first neutrino detector. The goal is to have the first detector operational before the end of 2028.
“The completion of the three large caverns and all of the interconnecting drifts marks the end of a really big dig. With no lost-time accidents in over three years, we reached a major achievement,” said Fermilab’s Michael Gemelli, who managed the excavation of the caverns by Thyssen Mining.
The DUNE collaboration, which includes more than 1,400 scientists and engineers from over 200 institutions in 35 countries, is eager to start the installation of the particle detectors. They have successfully tested the technology and assembly process for the first detector and preparations for the technology of the second detector is underway at the European research laboratory CERN.
