In November, Unicamp and scientific institutions from four other countries signed a cooperation agreement committing to supplying technologies for DUNE, an international experiment that will employ huge particle detectors to study the behavior of neutrinos. The project, which brings together thousands of scientists from 200 research institutions around the world, is hosted by Fermilab, a particle physics laboratory in the United States, and aims to determine whether neutrinos – tiny particles that permeate the cosmos, but which rarely interact with anything – may be the reason why the universe is made up of matter.
To achieve this objective, the joint project is developing and installing neutrino detectors in different parts of the United States: the first at Fermilab itself, located in the city of Batavia, in the State of Illinois, and the second at the Sanford Underground Research Laboratory (Surf, its acronym in English), located in South Dakota. The latter, of larger proportions, will be built 1.500 meters deep, distributed in three caves that were formerly part of one of the largest gold mines in the country.
In addition to Unicamp, represented by its general coordinator, Maria Luiza Moretti, representatives from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, its acronym in French), based in Switzerland, and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics were at Fermilab to sign the agreement. and Particle Physics of France, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics of Italy and the Science and Technology Facilities Council/Research and Innovation of the United Kingdom. Together, the five countries have committed to supplying components for the two DUNE detectors.
According to the agreement, Brazil, which has Unicamp as the leader of scientific and technological work carried out in the country, will contribute technologies for the photon detection system, particles that make up light and which are one of the signals used to find neutrinos. “I never imagined, in my life, that one day I would be representing my University and my country in such a wonderful, unusual and remarkable project. Even though we are from different parts of the world, we are a team right now. Although we speak different languages, we all speak the language of science, education and progress”, celebrates Professor Moretti.
