June 20--The unprecedented launch of a billion-dollar international physics experiment could be exactly what Batavia-based Fermilab needs to ensure the vitality of its future.
The facility lost its formidable status in 2011 to a behemoth 17-mile underground proton accelerator at the Swiss-French border called the Large Hadron Collider, which launched in November 2009. It replaced the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's 4-mile Tevatron ring, its most alluring attribute.
But Fermilab is on the brink of constructing a facility for a new project, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which could help Fermilab regain its title as the world's uncontested leader in particle physics research.
The experiment will be the largest global physics project the United States has hosted to date. It will study the properties of neutrinos, abundant but little-researched particles produced by the sun and other celestial objects.
Scientists plan to expand their understanding of the particles, as well as their role in the universe, by using Fermilab's accelerators to create neutrinos and then shoot them 800 miles through an underground beam to a neutrino detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota.
"'People tell me, 'Jeez, that's a crazy experiment. You're gonna make a beam of particles and point it all the way to South Dakota?'" said Nigel Lockyer, Fermilab director. "Neutrinos capture the imagination of the public. There are more neutrinos than any other particle, but we know the least about them."
Project designers are confident the experiment and its corresponding facilities will become Fermilab's new flagship project, and that its massive scope will have global physicists' hearts racing anew, turning the spotlight back on Fermilab's roughly 2,000 scientists.
It's the laboratory's biggest step forward since October 2011, when a lack of funding shut down the Tevatron. The particle accelerator produced the first proton-antiproton collisions, paved the way for about 1,000 doctorates, produced about a paper a week through its various experiments and led to the discovery of the top quark.
In 2013, Fermilab faced $36 million in federal budget cuts, a move fought by politicians such as U.S. Reps. Randy Hultgren and Bill Foster.
During the next decades, the upgrades at Fermilab could reach billions of dollars. But Fermilab Director Lockyer said a main reason the government supports the project is its international reach, and the priority of neutrino research in science.
"We've captured the imagination of the government, that we can host a mega science facility on U.S. soil for the first time, and create interesting opportunities to partner with other countries," he said. "Different countries will bring different expertise to the table, and that creates positive energy."
Two facilities will be built for the experiment, one on site at Fermilab and the other in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Construction at Fermilab is estimated to begin in 2019, and will consist of an embankment, or 60-foot hill, to encompass the proton beam. That construction will likely end between 2024 and 2026, said Elaine McCluskey, the experiment's project manager.
Construction in South Dakota will require underground excavation of rock, which would then be transported to an off-site repository using the Ross Shaft, which was used during the gold-mining era.
About 613,000 cubic yards of rock will need to be removed to make way for a facility a mile underground. It will house a scientific lab and the neutrino detector, enclosed inside massive cryogenic equipment filled with liquid argon.
The rare interactions between neutrinos and the nuclei of argon atoms will create signals transmitted to computers for storage and analysis, McCluskey said.
Construction in South Dakota could begin in 2017 and be completed by 2023, she said.
While the project has the support of the federal government and roughly 26 countries, the support of the public and Batavia residents is next.
The Department of Energy will host a public meeting informing residents of the experiment at 6:30 p.m. June 24 on Fermilab's campus, officials said.
Issues up for discussion will include the experiment's compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, as well as potential construction and noise concerns east of Kirk Road where construction will take place during the next decade.
"It's really exciting, all of this, and we want the public to feel that," said Peter Siebach, the Department of Energy's National Environmental Policy Act compliance officer. "But we don't want to just sell excitement, we want to give them the opportunity to tell us what they really think."
The DOE is preparing an environmental assessment to determine what impacts the experiment's construction and operation could have on people and the environment, he said.
Workers might be exposed to a minimal amount of radiation, for example, which can be dangerous, Siebach said.
"Like neutrinos, radiation's all around us," he said. "The trick is to minimize it and put barriers between people and the environmental radiation. We're doing whatever we can to keep radiation as low as reasonably achievable."
Siebach says the bigger concern for residents, though, will be the project's construction, and the traffic and noise it may cause, as well as the number of trucks crowding Kirk and Butterfield roads.
There are socioeconomic benefits to the experiment too, though, including increased area employment for construction workers, he said.
"Mostly though, this is something that increases the viability of the long-term mission of Fermilab," Siebach said. "So Fermilab's gonna be around, which has a tremendous impact on the community."
meltagouri@tribune.com
