MicroBooNE detector to see neutrinos this year

From the warehouse building it was constructed in, the MicroBooNE detector — a 30-ton cylindrical metal tank designed to detect ghostly neutrinos — was carefully transported by truck across the US Department of Energy’s Fermilab site near Chicago, Illinois, to the experimental hall three miles away. The massive detector was hoisted with a crane, lowered through the open roof, and placed into its permanent home — directly in the path of Fermilab’s neutrino beam. There it will become the centerpiece of the MicroBooNE experiment.

Under construction for nearly two years, the MicroBooNE detector tank contains a 32-foot-long (9.75 meter-long) ‘time projection chamber,’ the largest ever built in the US. The chamber is equipped with 8,256 delicate gilded wires, which the MicroBooNE team attached by hand over the course of two months. This machine will enable scientists to further study the properties of neutrinos, particles that may hold the key to understanding many unexplained mysteries of the universe.

“This is a huge day for the MicroBooNE experiment,” says Fermilab’s Regina Rameika, project manager for the MicroBooNE experiment. “We’ve worked hard to create the best scientific instrument that we can. To see it moved into place was a thrill for the entire team.” The detector will be filled with 170 tons of liquid argon, a heavy liquid that will release charged particles when neutrinos interact with it. The detector’s three layers of wires will capture pictures of the interactions at different points in time and send the information to the experiment’s computers.

Using sophisticated processing programs, the computers will sift through the thousands of interactions that will occur every day and create 3D images of the most interesting. The MicroBooNE team will use the data to learn more about how neutrinos change from one type to another, and narrow the search for a hypothesized (but as of yet, never observed) fourth type of neutrino.

“The scientific potential of MicroBooNE is really exciting,” says Bonnie Fleming, co-spokesperson for the MicroBooNE experiment and Horace D. Taft Professor of Physics at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US. “After a long time spent designing and building the detector, we are thrilled to start taking data later this year.”

In a recent report, the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5), comprised of members of the high-energy physics community, expressed strong support for the Fermilab short-baseline neutrino program. MicroBooNE is a cornerstone of the program, which studies neutrinos traveling over shorter distances. The report was commissioned by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, which advises both the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation on funding priorities.

To see additional images and video, visit Fermilab’s site.

– Amber Harmon