The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE - interesting video at this link) is a leading-edge international neutrino experiment jointly hosted by Fermilab and the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. An intense beam of muon neutrinos produced at Fermilab will travel 1,300 km to a set of massive liquid-argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) located 1.5 km underground, accumulating data over a planned 20-year science program with more than 1,000 collaborators worldwide.
DUNE's primary physics goals are the definitive determination of the neutrino mass ordering, a precision measurement of the CP-violating phase δCP in the lepton sector, and the search for nucleon decay with sensitivity substantially beyond current experimental limits. The experiment will also be sensitive to the neutrino flux from a Galactic core-collapse supernova. The NN Group at Stony Brook has been a member of the DUNE collaboration since 2020 and contributes to both detector construction and physics analysis.
Far Detector Vertical Drift Module
One of the DUNE far-detector module employs the vertical-drift LArTPC design, in which the electric field runs vertically from cathode to anode across a 6 m drift distance. The NN Group carries significant hardware responsibilities for this module.
Power-over-Fiber System
The group leads the production, procurement, and integration of the Power-over-Fiber (PoF) system for FD-VD. PoF is the technology by which power is delivered to active detector components inside the cryostat via optical fiber, eliminating metallic conductors that would otherwise introduce noise and heat loads. The group also leads the design and installation of the cable tray system that routes optical fibers and signal cables throughout the Photon Detection System (PDS) of the FD vertical-drift module. This work includes developing detailed installation procedures for the wire-mesh cable trays, their supporting plates, and the associated fastener hardware, all qualified for operation in the cryogenic and low-background environment of the underground detector.
Cold and warm electronics testing
The group is in charge of supporting the cold and the warm electronics testing. The former are performed at BNL, while for the latter we have a testing stand in our laboratory.
Detector R&D - Wavelength-Shifting Coatings
The group conducts laboratory R&D on wavelength-shifting (WLS) coatings for LArTPC photon detectors, in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University. These coatings convert the 128 nm vacuum-ultraviolet scintillation light of liquid argon into the visible range detectable by standard photomultipliers and silicon photomultipliers, and are directly relevant to the photon detection efficiency.
ProtoDUNE Contributions
Single-Phase Prototype
The group contributed to ProtoDUNE-SP, the full-scale single-phase LArTPC prototype operated at the CERN Neutrino Platform. ProtoDUNE-SP was the first test of the detector technology at engineering scale and provided critical validation of the charge-readout anode plane assemblies, high-voltage system, and photon detection components that now form the basis of the first DUNE far detector module.
Vertical Drift Prototype
The group also contributes to ProtoDUNE-VD, the engineering prototype for the FD vertical-drift module, operated at the CERN Neutrino Platform. ProtoDUNE-VD replicates the key elements of the vertical-drift design, including the bottom anode plane, the horizontal cathode, and the photon detection system, at a scale sufficient to validate construction procedures and detector performance before full production. The NN Group's hardware contributions, including the Power-over-Fiber system, where critical for the success of this prototype.
Physics and Analysis
The NN Group is at the forefront of developing GUNDAM (Generalized and Unified Neutrino Data Analysis Methods), a modern C++ framework for likelihood-based oscillation analyses in neutrino oscillation experiments. GUNDAM is designed to replace legacy analysis codes with a modular, well-documented, high-performance tool suited for the statistical demands of DUNE's long-baseline program. The group is actively working to establish GUNDAM as the standard oscillation analysis framework within DUNE, and is pursuing dedicated funding to bring the codebase to professional-software standards ahead of first data-taking.
Long-Baseline Sensitivity Studies
The group is working on the second-generation long-baseline sensitivity studies for DUNE, developing the statistical methodology and analysis infrastructure needed to project the experiment's sensitivity to the CP-violating phase and the mass ordering as a function of exposure, systematic uncertainties, and beam configuration.
Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillation Sensitivity Studies
The DUNE far detector will accumulate a large sample of atmospheric neutrinos — produced by cosmic-ray interactions in the upper atmosphere — that arrive from all directions and span a wide range of energies and path lengths through the Earth. This diversity of baselines and matter profiles makes atmospheric neutrinos a powerful and independent probe of the neutrino mass ordering and the octant of θ₂₃. The NN Group is contributing to develope the analysis infrastructure needed to extract oscillation sensitivity from the atmospheric neutrino sample in the DUNE far detector. These studies complement the group's long-baseline sensitivity work and provide sensitivity to the mass ordering that is independent of the beam-based measurement, strengthening DUNE's overall physics case.