Fermilab updates proposal for new neutrino facility

Science : In response to a US Department of Energy (DOE) request, Fermilab has redesigned a proposed project to study neutrino flavor oscillations. The original, $1.9 billion plan for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) was to fire neutrinos from Fermilab’s Batavia, Illinois, location to a 34â000-ton argon-filled detector buried in a South Dakota gold mine 1â300 km away. The updated, $789 million plan reduces the size of the detector to 10â000 tons and places it on the surface at the same location. However, if another $135 million can be obtained from other sources, the detector would be buried in the mine. Burying the detector is best because the surface of Earth is constantly being bombarded by neutrinos, which would mask the signal from the beam of neutrinos fired from Illinois.