CERN's ProtoDUNE Puts Two Detector Technologies Through Long-Term Stress Test for DUNE
Dune
CERN's ProtoDUNE Puts Two Detector Technologies Through Long-Term Stress Test for DUNE
CERN's neutrino platform runs two 770-ton ProtoDUNE prototypes to stress-test technology for the future underground DUNE detectors, since components will be sealed in liquid argon for decades once installed.
Scientists compare a proven 1980s Anode Plane Assembly (APA) wire-based design, already tested at ProtoDUNE from 2018 to 2024, against a newer printed circuit board readout called "vertical drift."
The vertical drift design doubles the distance liberated electrons travel in liquid argon, letting scientists capture more neutrinos with fewer components, but it requires much higher voltage to maintain the electric field.
DUNE detectors are liquid-argon time projection chambers built a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, where neutrino interactions with argon atoms create ionization tracks read out to determine a neutrino's position, energy and identity.
Beyond accelerator-generated neutrinos, DUNE will also detect cosmic neutrinos that can give astronomers early warning of a supernova before its visible light reaches Earth.
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