Skip to main content
European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
CORDIS Web 30th anniversary CORDIS Web 30th anniversary
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Design of a pan-European Infrastructure for Large Apparatus studying Grand Unification, Neutrino Astrophysics and Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillations

Objective

Key questions in physics can be answered only by constructing a giant underground observatory to search for rare events and study terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos. The Astroparticle Roadmap of ApPEC/ASPERA strongly supports this, recommending that: “a new large European infrastructure of 100'000-500'000 ton for proton decay and low-energy neutrinos be evaluated as a common design study together with the underground infrastructure and eventual detection of accelerator neutrino beams”. The latest CERN roadmap also states: “a range of very important non-accelerator experiments takes place at the overlap of particle and astroparticle physics exploring otherwise inaccessible phenomena; Council will seek with ApPEC a coordinated strategy in these areas of mutual interest.”
Reacting to this, uniting scientists across Europe with industrial support to produce a very strong collaboration, the LAGUNA FP7 design study has had a very positive effect. It enabled, via study of seven pre-selected locations (Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and UK), a detailed geo-technical assessment of the giant underground cavern needed, concluding finally that no geo-technical show-stoppers to cavern construction exist. Building on this, the present design study will address two challenges vital to making a final detector and site choice: (i) to determine the full cost of construction underground, commissioning and long-term operation of the infrastructure, and (ii) to determine the full impact of including long baseline neutrino physics with beams from CERN.

Call for proposal

FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-1
See other projects for this call

Coordinator

EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
EU contribution
€ 325 200,00
Address
Raemistrasse 101
8092 Zuerich
Switzerland

See on map

Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Zürich Zürich
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Administrative Contact
André Rubbia (Prof.)
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (38)