Wright Lab hosts international DUNE technical workshop in new Wright Lab Exploration Wing

DUNE—the world’s largest neutrino experiment—is an international project designed to make precision measurements of neutrino oscillation using a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab in Chicago aimed at DUNE’s far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in the Homestake mine in South Dakota. DUNE measurements will allow researchers to measure with unprecedented accuracy the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation—a quantum mechanical effect that allows one flavor of neutrino to change into another—and also probe if neutrinos and their corresponding antiparticles interact differently.  

At Wright Lab, the group of Karsten Heeger, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Director of Wright Lab, is building critical components for the far detector, which will be constructed a mile underground in the Homestake mine. Yale is one of two US assembly sites for DUNE’s charge readout planes (CRPs), which are large modular structures composed of perforated printed circuit board (PCB), composite frames, and readout electronics.  

When a neutrino interacts with the liquid argon medium in the detector, electrons are knocked loose. An electric field causes these electrons to drift towards the CRPs, where they are collected and converted into electrical signals. Physicists use these signals to reconstruct 3-dimensional images of particle interactions. 

At the workshop, the Yale team demonstrated their readiness to begin the final assembly of the DUNE Charge Readout Planes and a panel of DUNE experts evaluated the assembly and testing procedures, quality control processes, and facilities that will be used to build CRPs at Yale.  

Tyler Stokes, a postdoctoral associate in the Heeger group, said, “As we move toward production of charge readout planes (CRPs) at Yale, it was very valuable for the experiment to have experts from across the world come together in person to review our procedures, quality control documentation, and production facilities. As we work through final details in aspects of production, testing, and shipping, bringing together our colleagues from the global CRP effort was invaluable.”  

The review was an important milestone for the DUNE CRP consortium. The review helped ensure that the team at Wright Lab is prepared to consistently produce detector components that meet DUNE’s stringent technical and quality requirements. 

Rohit Raut, a graduate student in physics working on DUNE with the Heeger group said, “This was my first time taking part in the construction of CRPs, and being part of the team preparing to build them for DUNE has been a valuable learning experience. The workshop and review marked an exciting transition from preparation to assembly for a critical component of one of the most ambitious science projects hosted in the US.” 

Participants included DUNE collaboration members from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Fermilab, Indiana University, The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and Yale. The Yale team includes Heeger, Raut, Stokes, and engineer James Wilhelmi.