MicroBooNE experiment’s first results show no hint of a sterile neutrino

For more than a decade, scientists have wondered whether a theorized new particle, a fourth kind of neutrino called the sterile neutrino, might exist in our universe. Evidence of this would add a new particle to the physicists’ best theory, the Standard Model of Particle Physics. A new particle would be a radical shift in our understanding of the basic building blocks of the universe. MicroBooNE’s four new experimental results all show the same thing: no sign of the sterile neutrino. Instead, the results align with the Standard Model of Particle Physics. With sterile neutrinos further disfavored as the explanation for anomalies spotted in neutrino data, scientists are investigating other possibilities. Unexplained data point toward promising research areas and lead us to more fundamental truths about how physics works at the smallest level.

Argonne announces 2022 Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellows, honoring the legacy of the physics Nobel Laureate

Argonne’s Maria Goeppert Mayer is one of only four women to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Today, on her 115th birthday, Argonne announces the award of its 2022 Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellowship to four outstanding early-career doctoral scientists.

ICARUS gets ready to fly

The ICARUS detector, part of Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, will officially start its hunt for elusive sterile neutrinos this fall. The international collaboration led by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia successfully brought the detector online and is now collecting test data and making final improvements.

Particle detector at Fermilab plays crucial role in Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

One of the DUNE near detector’s subdetectors, SAND, will detect neutrinos with an electronic calorimeter, which measures particle energy, and a tracker, which records particle momenta and charge. A second subdetector will use liquid argon to mimic the neutrino interactions in the far detector. The third will use gaseous argon. Working together, they will measure particles with more precision than other neutrino detectors have able been to achieve. Credit: DUNE collaboration

Fermilab scientist Juan Estrada wins American Physical Society Instrumentation Award

A physicist making great advances in particle detector technology, Estrada is recognized by the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields for his creation and development of novel applications for CCD technology that probe wide-ranging areas of particle physics, including cosmology, dark matter searches, neutrino detection and quantum imaging.

UK scientists build core components of global neutrino experiment

Engineers and technicians in the UK have started production of key piece of equipment for a major international science experiment. The UK government has invested £65million in the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. As part of the investment, the UK is delivering a series of vital detector components built at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Daresbury Laboratory.

Scientists Say Farewell to Daya Bay Site, Proceed with Final Data Analysis

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment collaboration – which made a precise measurement of an important neutrino property eight years ago, setting the stage for a new round of experiments and discoveries about these hard-to-study particles – has finished taking data. Though the experiment is formally shutting down, the collaboration will continue to analyze its complete dataset to improve upon the precision of findings based on earlier measurements.

90 Years of Neutrino Science

Berkeley Lab has a long history of participating in neutrino experiments and discoveries in locations ranging from a site 1.3 miles deep at a nickel mine in Ontario, Canada, to an underground research site near a nuclear power complex northeast of Hong Kong, and a neutrino observatory buried in ice near the South Pole.

Contract awarded for the excavation of gigantic caverns for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

This month, Thyssen Mining Inc. was awarded the contract to excavate the gigantic caverns for Fermilab’s Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility. Excavation crews will drill, blast and remove approximately 800,000 tons of rock to create the underground space for LBNF. When complete, the facility will house the enormous particle detector for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab.

NOvA turns its eyes to the skies

The NOvA experiment, best known for its measurements of neutrino oscillations using particle beams from Fermilab accelerators, has been turning its attention to measurements of cosmic phenomena. In a series of results, NOvA reports on neutrinos from supernovae, gravitational-wave events from black hole mergers, muons from cosmic rays, and its search for the elusive monopole.

ICEBERG tests future neutrino detector systems with ‘beautiful’ results

Scientists are testing the components and systems for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, with other liquid-argon particle detectors. One such detector is ICEBERG, which is over 10,000 times smaller than DUNE will be. ICEBERG’s measurements are providing insight for future neutrino experiments.

Searching for supernova neutrinos with DUNE

The international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment collaboration has published a paper about its capability for performing supernova physics. It details the kind of activity DUNE expects in the detector during a supernova burst, how DUNE will know once a supernova occurs and what physics DUNE will extract from the neutrinos. DUNE’s unique strength is its sensitivity to a particular type of neutrino called the electron neutrino, which will provide scientists with supernova data not available from any other experiment.

Crews create a blast to take the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment to the next stage

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 detectors a mile underground.

Three Fermilab scientists receive DOE Early Career Research Awards

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.

IMSA High School Internship advances DUNE project and showcases unexplored potential of physics

Argonne National Laboratory’s Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) High School Internship Program has this year’s exceptionally bright high school students working on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE)’s world-changing research.

DUNE collaboration finalizes the blueprint for the ultimate neutrino detector

The publication of the Technical Design Report is a major milestone for the construction of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, an international mega-science project hosted by Fermilab. It lays out in great detail the scientific goals as well as the technical components of the gigantic particle detectors of the experiment.

Ultra-high energy events key to study of ghost particles

Physicists at Washington University in St. Louis have proposed a way to use data from ultra-high energy neutrinos to study interactions beyond the standard model of particle physics. The ‘Zee burst’ model leverages new data from large neutrino telescopes such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and its future extensions.

The CUORE Underground Experiment Narrows the Search for Rare Particle Process

The largest set of data yet from an underground experiment called CUORE sets more stringent limits on a theoretical ultra-rare particle process known as neutrinoless double-beta decay that could help to explain the abundance of matter over antimatter in the universe.

Tests start at CERN for large-scale prototype of new technology to detect neutrinos

Scientists working at CERN have started tests of a new neutrino detector prototype, using a very promising technology called “dual phase.” If successful, this new technology will be used at a much larger scale for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by the U.S Department of Energy’s Fermilab.