U.S. secretary of Energy Rick Perry and India’s Atomic Energy secretary Dr. Sekhar Basu signed an agreement in New Delhi, India Monday to expand the two countries’ collaboration on world-leading science and technology projects. It will open the way for jointly advancing cutting-edge neutrino science projects under way in both countries: The Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) with the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) was at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab in Batavia and the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO).
LBNF/DUNE brings together scientists from around the world to discover the role that tiny particles known as neutrinos play in the universe. More than 1,000 scientists from more than 170 institutions in 31 countries work on LBNF/DUNE and celebrated its groundbreaking in July 2017. The project will use Fermilab’s powerful particle accelerators to send the world’s most intense beam of high-energy neutrinos to massive neutrino detectors that will explore their interactions with matter.
INO scientists will observe neutrinos that are produced in Earth’s atmosphere to answer questions about the properties of these elusive particles. Scientists from more than 20 institutions are working on INO.
Under the new agreement signed Monday, U.S. and Indian institutions will expand this productive collaboration to include neutrino research projects. The LBNF/DUNE project will use the upgraded Fermilab particle accelerator complex to send the world’s most powerful neutrino beam 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) through the earth to a massive neutrino detector located at Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. An additional detector will measure the neutrino beam at Fermilab as it leaves the accelerator complex.
—Fermilab
