Welcome to the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) Home Page

Recent, irrefutable evidence establishes that the ubiquitous neutrinos have tiny masses.  Neutrino mass is physics beyond the Standard Model and is arguably the most important discovery in particle physics in the last quarter century.  The mass of the neutrino is most likely of a very special character, such that the neutrino is its own antiparticle.  The tiny sizes of the neutrino masses point to a mechanism that not only gives neutrinos mass but allows for the possibility of explaining the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe.  The Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) is a new project being proposed to explore the  mass spectrum of the neutrinos and their properties under the CP symmetry.  Neutrinos can be created using protons produced  at the Fermilab accelerator. If the neutrinos are directed to pass through the earth over a long distance , a phenomenon known as neutrino oscillations will manifest itself such that properties of the neutrinos can be studied.

 

The  LBNE project will include  building a neutrino beamline aimed at neutrino detectors constructed on the Fermilab site and at a laboratory to be located  more than 1000 kilometers away. One possible location for this detector is the proposed Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL)  in the Homestake Gold Mine near Lead, South Dakota. The laboratory could house experiments run by researchers from a wide range of sciences, including particle physics. Placing detectors at great depth benefits particle physics experiments because layers of earth and rock act as shielding to minimize background noise caused by approaching particles from space.  DUSEL would be the world's deepest underground laboratory, eventually having  experiments installed as deep as 8,000 feet underground