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DOE Announces $30.5 Million Civil Engineering Effort at DOE's Fermilab InIllinois
DOE Announces $30.5 Million Civil Engineering Effort at DOE's
Fermilab InIllinois
CHICAGO, Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson
announced today that the Department of Energy's Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) has awarded a $30.5 million
subcontract to bring an important new science experiment a step
closer to completion.
"This new facility will help us answer some of the most challenging
questions in high energy physics and cosmology today," said Secretary
Richardson. "It is an excellent example of the Department of
Energy's scientific leadership and our role in providing the tools
for cutting edge scientific discovery."
The subcontract with S. A. Healy Company of Lombard, Illinois -- one
of Fermilab's largest ever for civil construction -- represents a
major step forward for the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI)
project. The company will construct an approximately one-mile long
tunnel, 20-25 feet in diameter, in the rock beneath Fermilab in
Illinois. In addition to the tunnel, two large caverns at Fermilab
will be excavated, totaling 109,000 cubic yards of space to house
experimental equipment needed for NuMI. Two access shafts and a
connection to the new Fermilab Main Injector will also be constructed
as part of the project.
Scientists at Fermilab will use the NuMI tunnel to direct a beam of
neutrinos underground through the earth to northeastern Minnesota.
Here, a new cavern is being created to house a neutrino detector at
the Soudan Underground Mine State Park. This cavern is being
constructed under a separate contract. The work at Soudan is being
supervised by the University of Minnesota, which already operates an
existing underground laboratory at the Soudan location, in
cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The purpose of NuMI -- and the associated Main Injector Neutrino
Oscillations Search (MINOS) project -- is to discover "neutrino
oscillations" using accelerator-produced neutrinos. Such a discovery
would provide convincing evidence of the existence of neutrino mass.
If neutrinos change form, or "oscillate," they must have mass. This
would be a discovery of great high energy physics and cosmological
importance.
Neutrinos are produced in nuclear reactions in the Sun and stars, as
well as in cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The particles were first
proposed and termed neutrinos, or "little neutral ones," by the
pioneering scientist Enrico Fermi. They almost never interact with
other matter, although billions pass through every square inch of the
Earth each second. But if neutrinos possess even a tiny amount of
mass, the enormous number of them may account for a large share of
the "missing mass" of the Universe, and help answer puzzling
questions about the behavior of galaxies.
The total project cost of NuMI/MINOS Project will be $136 million in
DOE funds, with additional funding and support from the State of
Minnesota and the United Kingdom.
Fermilab is managed for the U.S. Department of Energy under a
management and operating contract with Universities Research
Association, Inc., a consortium of 89 U.S. and foreign educational
institutions.
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