More than 50 members of the international neutrino community came to a
late-July summit at Fermilab. As a result of the meeting, an Interim
International Executive Board was formed that will guide the scientific
strategy for
an international facility for
deep underground neutrino and proton decay studies.
The iiEB will also steer the community toward submitting a letter of
intent to our Physics Advisory Committee this fall and a conceptual
design report for the experiment by next summer.
This site is intended for sharing of information among iiEB members
and between the iiEB and the international neutrino physics community.
About the transition to a new facility and experiment
As outlined in the 2014 report of the Particle Physics Project
Prioritization Panel (P5), the U.S. plans to partner with the
international neutrino physics community to develop a leading-edge
facility for neutrino science and proton decay studies. This facility
will be an internationally designed, coordinated and funded program,
hosted at Fermilab, comprising the world's highest-intensity neutrino
beam and advanced underground detectors designed to both exploit this
beam and observe galactic neutrinos from supernovae.
The
experiments incorporated in this facility are expected to achieve
transformative discoveries about neutrinos, making definitive
determinations of neutrino properties, the dynamics of the supernovae
that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and the
possibility of proton decay. These mysteries at the forefront of
particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early
evolution of our universe, its innermost workings and its eventual
fate.
The present collaborations focused on long-baseline and
galactic supernova neutrino physics and proton decay have contributed
to developing both a strong physics case and technological designs for
experiments that would enable these discoveries. These collaborations
will dissolve with the goal of participating in the new, international
project that will bring together the collective worldwide expertise and
the resources needed to realize the P5 vision through the process
initiated by Fermilab and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The
reformulated neutrino facility will build on Fermilab’s existing
world-class accelerator complex, including the Main Injector and the
planned Proton Improvement Plan (PIP-II),
to supply the required intense beam of neutrinos to detectors both
onsite at Fermilab and at a distant location.
Contact: Stephany Unruh
