Collaboration for Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) Receives Major Funding to Begin Construction and Testing
In the quest to clarify the nature of the mysterious neutrino particle, millions of which pass through us undetected every day, scientists from several international universities and laboratories have joined forces to build a unique engineering technology demonstrator at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK. Major funding in the UK has just been announced. The project is being supported in the US by multi-year grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy.
Daniel Kaplan, professor of physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Chairperson of the international MICE Collaboration Board said, “MICE exemplifies a new and growing trend: particle-accelerator R&D, not just by the accelerator experts at national laboratories but by particle physicists (and their students) at universities. Research funding agencies such as the US National Science Foundation (NSF) have taken note and are contributing importantly to the success of the project.”
The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will seek to prove one of the key requirements to produce intense beams of neutrinos at a dedicated Neutrino Factory, which might be built later this decade. MICE will study the behavior of muons as they pass through materials and are subsequently accelerated, a key part of preparing a beam for the Neutrino Factory. The Neutrino Factory will allow scientists to explore the characteristics of the neutrino to unprecedented accuracy, reshaping our understanding of the structure of matter and the forces that bind it together.
Recent observations of solar neutrinos have shown that they change state (oscillate) between three forms—electron, tau and muon—during their journey from the Sun to the Earth. This discovery is extremely significant since oscillations can only occur if neutrinos have mass. The Standard Model of particle physics assumes that neutrinos have no mass. The ability for neutrinos to change state, therefore having mass, means the Standard Model is wrong or incomplete.
The MICE collaboration consists of 150 scientists from the UK, continental Europe, the US and Japan. In addition to IIT, the US collaborating institutions include Northern Illinois University, the University of Illinois, Fairfield University, the University of Iowa, the University of Mississippi, UCLA, the University of California at Riverside, Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, Jefferson Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After an exhaustive search, the international collaboration decided that a muon beam at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory provided the most suitable environment for this experiment. Each collaborating world region is contributing equipment, ideas, and manpower to the project. US physicists played key roles in developing the concept of MICE along with UK physicists and engineers who are taking leading roles in the implementation of MICE: the design of the MICE Muon Beam, the superconducting focusing solenoids and the two scintillating-fiber trackers.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
