Fapesp Agency – Scientists linked to research institutions in Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom, Paraguay and Colombia meet at Fapesp, on June 1st, to discuss the evolution and Brazilian participation in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment – DUNE, or Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment Neutrinos, international program developed at Fermilab, in Chicago, United States, to build the most sensitive neutrino detector in the world. The experiment is expected to go into operation in 2023.
Neutrinos are the most abundant subatomic particles in the Universe, and also the most difficult to detect. They have a neutral charge and, therefore, do not aggregate with other particles to form matter and can pass through it without being noticed. A greater understanding of its behavior could explain, for example, why the Universe is made up of matter.
The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the contribution to DUNE from research groups in Brazil that already collaborate on projects at Fermilab and to explore possibilities for participation by other groups in Latin America.
Participating in the workshop are Mark Thomson, coordinator of DUNE and professor at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom; Flávio Cavanna, professor at Yale University, in the United States, and coordinator of protoDUNE, a program to test and validate the technologies that will be applied in the construction of DUNE; and Ornella Palamara, also from Yale University and coordinator of the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND), a Fermilab program responsible for recording neutrino interactions at DUNE.
With support from Fapesp, scientists in Brazil led by Ettore Segreto, from the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics, at Unicamp, and organizer of the workshop, and Ana Amélia Machado, from the Federal University of ABC, participate in the DUNE construction project with the development of Arapuca sensor, which could be used to detect neutrinos through the light signal, called scintillation, resulting from their collision with other atomic particles.
Today, the presence of neutrinos in the atmosphere is recorded in large tanks of pure water such as Super-Kamiokande, located in the city of Hida (formerly Kamioka), in Japan. At DUNE, four large underground pools with around 10 thousand tons of liquid argon will each function as detectors of these particles, generated by the experiment itself.
DUNE's goal is to make innovative discoveries about the origin of matter present in the Universe and the processes involved in the formation of black holes – cosmic structures resulting from the collapse of stars, with gravitational attraction so intense that it absorbs everything around it, including light.
SERVICE
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Workshop
Date and time: June 1, 2017
Location: Fapesp, Rua Pio XI, 1.500, Alto da Lapa, São Paulo, SP
Schedule and more information at: http://www.fapesp.br/eventos/dune
Registrations: www.fapesp.br/eventos/dune/registration
