Cavern excavation for the long-baseline neutrino facility, or LBNF is officially complete, and the project is shifting into the next phase.
These caverns are in the old Homestake mine in the Northern Black Hills. They will host the deep underground neutrino experiment, or DUNE, which wants to look at how neutrinos change over distance.
Physicist theorize the oscillations may contain clues as to why there’s more matter than anti-matter in the universe.
The excavation work has been going on since 2020.
“It’s pretty amazing to be standing inside of these caverns that we’ve envisioned for so long and actually see that the science is coming,” said Josh Willhite, LBNF DUNE project manager, who oversees the project construction. “There’s detectors operating at CERN right now that are using the exact components that will come here to operate. This is a reality, it’s going to happen. It’s a very good feeling.”
CERN is a particle physics laboratory located in Switzerland.
Officials from around the world are celebrated the excavation completion with a unique, underground ribbon cutting a mile underground. But before construction of the detectors even starts, some are already looking to expand what many are calling the largest science experiment on US soil.
US Senator Mike Rounds was governor when the state worked on a land transfer with Barrick Gold Corp, which owned the abandoned mine.
As voices echo from the empty cavern behind him, Rounds is already thinking about the future of this underground lab.
“I wonder how long before we outgrow it. I think there’s already discussion about the fact that there’s enough demand for science that needs to be done underground that there’s already discussions about where the caverns need to be and where do we put them.”
The LBNF-DUNE caverns are a collaboration between the Department of Energy, state and Fermilab—as well as help form international partners.
Last year, state lawmakers appropriated $13 million to excavate and expand the lab even further into the rock at the 4800 level.
Rounds said the caverns are the culmination of UCLA professor Kevin Lesko, who—along with Rounds—convinced state lawmakers in the early aughts to turn the retired gold mine into an underground science lab.
“I think at the time we knew this was the right place to do science—to go underground, pursue some of the great problems, and we had a great resource in South Dakota with support from the legislature. It’s fantastic to see it actually here, ready to start science.”
It will still take a few years before Fermilab in Illinois will beam neutrinos toward the Black Hills. Crews will start outfitting the caverns with utilities before they can construct the large detectors. The materials for those detectors will get transferred underground by an elevator shaft, piece by piece, by over a mile.
Construction for the detectors will start next year. Officials hope neutrino experiments will start by the early 2030’s.
