I. DUNE
II. DUNE @ APC
III. Group members
IV. Further info
V. Useful links
Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
The DUNE is a next-generation, long-baseline neutrino experiment. A high power wide-band beam operating in (anti-)neutrino mode will be produced at Fermilab, with its flux and flavour composition being characterised with the Near Detector, and then re-analyzed, 1300 km further away, by four gigantic Far Detector modules installed deep underground at the Sandford Underground Research Facility (SURF, South Dakota). The three primary physics goals of DUNE are:
- measure precisely the neutrino oscillation parameters in a single experiment, including the neutrino mass ordering and the CP-violating phase δCP, and test the three-flavor paradigm,
- make astrophysics and particle physics measurements with supernova burst neutrinos and other low-energy neutrinos, and
- search for phenomena beyond the Standard Model.
DUNE @ APC
General: Members of APC have covered coordination roles in the physics working groups and other instances of the Collaboration (Institution Board, Speakers’ Committee). They have been critical in the conception and design of DUNE, and the formation of the collaboration. The DUNE APC team has been involved in the development of giant liquid argon Time Projection Chambers, needed for the DUNE Far Detectors. The team has worked on several large-scale prototypes, contributing with simulation, data analysis and hardware dedicated to the detection and use of scintillation light.
Technical and analysis contributions: A dedicated prototyping effort is necessary to validate the technical solutions of the DUNE far detectors and to prove their performance for physics. The WA105 demonstrator, with a fiducial volume of 4 tonnes, was operated at CERN in 2017. A PhD thesis carried at APC was largely devoted to the analysis of its data, whose results were published.
Two detector prototypes were built at the CERN North Area for a full-scale test of the two proposed detector technologies for charge collection, single and dual-phase. ProtoDUNE-DualPhase took data with cosmic rays in 2018. The team was heavily involved in the operation and data analysis, by co-leading the ProtoDUNE Data Reconstruction and Analysis working group, and also having person power dedicated to developing reconstruction algorithms.
The so-called “Vertical Drift” technology has been recently proposed for the second module of the DUNE far detector, implementing collection of the ionisation charge on Printed Circuit Board (PCB) after their drift over a large volume. The team is actively contributing to this new design. They are participating to the construction of a test setup and of a detector prototype at CERN. Studies on the reconstruction and physics performance , using these new prototypes, are also planned.
Detecting scintillation light from liquid argon is fundamental to the work of DUNE’s Far Detectors. This light provides the time stamp of the event, allowing the determination of the depth of the interaction in the liquid argon volume, and will provide the trigger for DUNE’s off-beam physics program. The APC group has extended its role to tackling the problem of detecting light in the Vertical Drift TPC, and is in charge of the development of an analog readout system for the scintillation light signal. The APC members have developed an analog transmitter, which converts electrical signals from SiPMs to optical signals which can then be carried on optical fiber to the exterior of the cryostat. The optical signal will then be converted back to an electrical signal and digitised.
Group members
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Scientific team
- Jaime Dawson (group leader)
- Camelia Mironov, HDR (deputy group leader)
- Joao Coelho
- Thomas Patzak, HDR
- Sabrina Sacerdoti
- Alessandra Tonazzo, HDR
- Henrique Vieria de Souza (Postdoc)
- Ariel Cohen (PhD student)
- Matteo Galli (PhD student)
- I Cheong Hong (PhD student)
- Dario Pugllia (PhD student)
- Camille Sironneau (PhD student)
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Engineering support
- Sylvie Blin (responsable technique)
- Bernard Courty
- Cedric Champion
- Pierre Prat
Further info
- APC Activity Report: 2017-2021
- DUNE physics mission: 2022 arxiv