Fermilab Director visits Daresbury Laboratory

The first project to be approved under a new bilateral UK-USA science and technology agreement is the DUNE-LBNF long baseline neutrino oscillations experiment at Fermilab in Chicago. £65m has been earmarked by STFC to support the construction of three major contributions to the programme, including superconducting RF cryo-modules for the 800 MeV PIP-II proton linear accelerator which will be assembled and tested at Daresbury Laboratory. PIP-II is the first stage in the generation of the intense beam of neutrinos required for this experiment but it will also provide intense beams of muons for a variety of other experiments. The Fermilab Director, Nigel Lockyer, visited Daresbury in late November to inspect the lab’s superconducting RF test facilities that are being developed as part of a major UK contribution to the European Spallation neutron Source (ESS) in Sweden. These facilities will be expanded and refined in readiness for the Fermilab work in the early 2020’s with delivery of the cryo-modules to Fermilab anticipated for the middle of the next decade.

During his visit, Nigel Lockyer met with laboratory and Cockcroft Institute staff and enjoyed an extensive tour of the lab’s facilities including VELA/CLARA, the ESS test area, the Engineering Technology Centre and the wire winding facility for liquid argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) detectors in the Tower Building. These are prototypes for the 40 Kton DUNE liquid argon Far Detector that will be located in a gigantic cavern in South Dakota, 1300 km to the west of Fermilab. We look forward to a long and productive partnership with Fermilab over the next decade.

The Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer (right) being accompanied on his tour of Daresbury Laboratory by the Cockcroft Institute Director Peter Ratoff