NEUTRINO hunters are gearing up for open season. When it is complete, this 10-metre-tall golden room will be a neutrino detector, filled with about 800 tonnes of liquid argon. Its shining walls can expand and contract like an accordion based on the temperature of the argon, which will be kept at -184掳C while the detector is running.
This experiment, called protoDUNE, is a 1/20th scale model of the planned DUNE neutrino detector, which will study how these elusive particles oscillate between different types, or 鈥渇lavours鈥�, and investigate their masses. It will also search for new types of neutrinos beyond the three that we know of now.
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In autumn 2018, two protoDUNE detectors will be placed along a beam of accelerated neutrinos at the CERN particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers will then be able to examine how the high-energy neutrinos interact with the argon nuclei in the tanks. This will generate a huge amount of data, but the true purpose of protoDUNE is to test the technology and figure out whether it is better to use tanks containing only liquid argon, or ones with some argon gas as well.
The full-sized DUNE experiment is expected to start in the late 2020s.
Photographer
Maximilien Brice, CERN
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕ilded cage鈥�
