DUNE Collaboration

DUNE Collaboration
Name	DUNE Collaboration
Established	2015
Headquarters	Fermilab
Members	>1000 scientists

DUNE Collaboration

The DUNE Collaboration is an international scientific partnership focused on long-baseline neutrino physics and astroparticle research, headquartered at Fermilab and involving institutions across United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, India, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Israel, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, Korea.

Overview

The Collaboration unites national laboratories, universities, and research institutes including Fermilab, CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, TRIUMF, KEK, INFN, CEA Saclay, DESY, Max Planck Society, CNRS to design and construct a long-baseline neutrino experiment that pairs a high-intensity neutrino beam from Fermilab with massive underground detectors located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. It builds upon prior experiments and proposals such as MINOS, NOvA, T2K, Super-Kamiokande, SNO, KamLAND, Daya Bay, Double Chooz, RENO, ICARUS, and MicroBooNE while coordinating with projects like Hyper-Kamiokande, J-PARC programs, and IceCube.

Scientific Goals and Research Program

Primary scientific objectives include precision measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters (including the PMNS matrix phases), determination of the neutrino mass ordering, and investigation of CP violation in the lepton sector—goals that connect to theories and results from Pontecorvo, Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata, Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix studies. The program targets proton decay searches informed by predictions from Grand Unified Theories, SU(5), SO(10), and SUSY scenarios, as well as supernova neutrino detection relevant to observations from SN 1987A, Supernova Early Warning System, James Webb Space Telescope, and gravitational-wave observatories like LIGO and VIRGO. The Collaboration’s physics reach engages with phenomenology developed by groups associated with CERN Theory Division, Perimeter Institute, Institute for Advanced Study, KITP, SLAC Theory Group, and SISSA.

Collaboration Structure and Membership

Governance follows models used by large experiments such as ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb, DZero, CDF, and T2K with an executive board, institutional board, physics and technical coordinators, and working groups. Membership comprises faculty and researchers from universities like University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Tokyo, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Melbourne, ETH Zurich, EPFL, University of Bologna, Sapienza University of Rome, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidade de São Paulo, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Seoul National University, and national labs such as Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Leadership roles have included scientists who previously served on collaborations like MINERvA, NOvA, SNO+, Borexino, KATRIN, CUORE, and EXO.

Experimental Facilities and Detectors

The experiment uses a high-power neutrino beam generated by upgrades to the Proton Improvement Plan-II accelerator complex and the Main Injector at Fermilab, transmitting neutrinos over a baseline to the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Far detectors employ liquid argon time-projection chamber (LArTPC) technology, scaling from prototypes such as ProtoDUNE-SP and ProtoDUNE-DP, with detector modules sited in the Homestake Mine caverns and incorporating techniques from ICARUS T600 and ArgoNeuT. Near detector concepts draw on instrumentation developed for MINERvA, NOvA Near Detector, and ND280 with subdetectors including magnetized spectrometers, time-of-flight systems, and calorimetry influenced by LHCb RICH and CMS calorimeter developments. Construction, cryogenics, and purification systems leverage industrial partnerships and expertise from Air Products and Chemicals, Neste, and Cryogenic Engineering Group practices used at Large Hadron Collider cryogenic installations.

Data Management and Analysis

Data acquisition, storage, and analysis pipelines are patterned on grid and cloud models like the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, Open Science Grid, CERN ROOT frameworks, Geant4 simulation toolkit, GENIE neutrino event generator, and analysis tools used in ROOT and Python ecosystems. The Collaboration coordinates distributed computing via regional centers at NERSC, GridKA, TRIUMF-Grid, INFN-CNAF, RAL Tier resources, and university clusters, and integrates software from Art Framework, LArSoft, Gaudi Project, and machine-learning frameworks popularized in NeurIPS and ICML research. Data preservation policies align with best practices from DataCite, CODATA, FAIR principles, and collaborations such as SKA and LSST.

Outreach, Education, and Funding

Outreach and education initiatives partner with museums and programs like the Smithsonian Institution, American Physical Society, European Physical Society, Science Museum, London, CERN Open Days, National Science Foundation education programs, and university public engagement offices. Funding and oversight involve agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, European Commission, Science and Technology Facilities Council, INFN, CNRS/IN2P3, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, JSPS, NSFC, CNPq, CONACYT, and national ministries of science. Collaborative training and fellowships echo programs at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Fulbright Program, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and laboratory-specific postdoctoral schemes at Fermilab and CERN.

Category:Neutrino experiments