A view of the ProtoDUNE cryostat at CERN (Image: CERN)
On 15 June, join CERN, Fermilab and Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) for an interactive livestream that will take you on a journey of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The CERN Neutrino Platform has provided a large-scale demonstration of the future DUNE detectors with the construction and operation of two prototypes known as ProtoDUNE.
The DUNE experiment is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and more than 1000 scientists and engineers from 35 countries spanning five continents - Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America - are working on the development, design and construction of the DUNE detectors. The experiment seeks to understand the nature of neutrinos - almost massless particles that could help answer fundamental questions such as why the Universe has much more matter than antimatter.
DUNE will be built at two locations: Fermilab, near Chicago, and SURF, in South Dakota. The Fermilab particle accelerator complex will provide the world's most intense beam of high-energy neutrinos and send it 1300 kilometres through Earth to huge neutrino detectors 1.5 kilometres underground at SURF. ProtoDUNE, the largest liquid-argon neutrino detector in the world, recorded its first particle tracks from both cosmic rays and a beam created at CERN's accelerator complex in 2018. ProtoDUNE is all set to begin its second run this year.
To mark the occasion, CERN will go live from the Neutrino Platform with the two other international laboratories - Fermilab will broadcast from the control room for its neutrino experiments and SURF from its Ross Hoistroom.
