The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or Dune, is beginning construction in the Homestake mine near Lead, South Dakota. The facility will house four massive particle detectors housed in underground caverns approximately one mile beneath the surface. Assembly of the equipment is scheduled to commence on Monday, with the full operational setup expected to take several years to complete.
Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, yet remain poorly understood by scientists. These nearly massless, chargeless particles pass through ordinary matter with minimal interaction, with roughly one trillion traversing the human body each second without detection. The particles exist in three distinct varieties and possess the unusual property of oscillating between these forms as they travel through space. Researchers believe studying neutrino behavior could illuminate fundamental questions about the universe’s composition and the apparent predominance of matter over antimatter.
The Dune detectors will consist of over 4,000 tonnes of steel and contain 70,000 tonnes of liquid argon cooled to minus 200 degrees Celsius. Scientists will observe neutrinos arriving from two primary sources: an intense beam directed through 800 miles of rock from Fermilab near Chicago, and natural neutrinos traveling from space after traveling from distant supernovae and stellar phenomena. When neutrinos strike argon atoms within the detectors, they produce measurable flickers of light and electrical pulses that researchers can analyze.
The Lead mining facility has a notable history in neutrino research. During the 1960s, physicist Ray Davis constructed an early neutrino detector in the mine and made the first successful observation of solar neutrinos. The mine ceased operations in 2001 and transitioned into the Sanford Underground Research Facility, which currently hosts other significant physics experiments. The United Kingdom is the largest international partner in the Dune project and is contributing detector components, computing systems, and equipment for the Fermilab neutrino beam generation.
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