The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a planned long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, to be built in Lead, South Dakota. It will feature four 10,000 ton detectors filled with liquid Argon (at -303 ºF), 1 mile underground.
It will measure neutrino oscillations from a muon neutrino beam produced by the Proton Improvement Plan II (PIP-II) upgrade at Fermilab, IL.
In addition to neutrino oscillations DUNE has a broad range of physics goals including the detection of supernova neutrinos and nucleon decays.
The neutrino physics group at Iowa State University is involved in many of these research activities.
Three Flavor Neutrino Oscillations
Through its measurement of three flavor neutrino oscillation DUNE has the potential to ultimately measure CP violation which is a fundamental property of the Universe. DUNE will also be able to perform precision measurements of the other mixing parameters which govern neutrino oscillations.
Prof. Sanchez focuses on the long baseline neutrino oscillation physics of this experiment, leading the long-baseline analysis group, as a continuation of her work on NOvA.
Supernova Detection and Observation
On average a supernova occurs every 50 years in the Milky Way. The last supernova in our galactic neighbourhood was in 1987, an explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Whilst it is well known that supernovae can produce awe-inspiring images in optical wavelengths, over 99% of their energy is released in the form of neutrinos! As neutrinos interact less than photons, they can also arrive at Earth before the light from the supernova.

Only 37 neutrinos were detected World-wide from the 1987a supernova, and they were detected two to three hours before the light from the supernova was observed. The DUNE detectors could detect up to 2000 interactions from a supernova in the Milky Way, offering a paradigm shifting sample to further our understanding of stellar and neutrino physics.
For this reason, a key factor in the DUNE Far Detector design is in ensuring that the neutrinos from a supernova in the Milky Way will be recorded by the experiment. This is a key focus of Prof. Weinstein’s efforts on DUNE, where she is working on the aspects of the DAQ and readout electronics for the detectors.
DUNE Detector Quality Assurance, Quality Control
Electronics operating at cryogenic temperatures play a critical role in future science experiments and space exploration programs. DUNE uses a cold electronics system for data taking. Specifically, it utilizes custom-designed Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The main challenge is that these circuits will be immersed in liquid Argon and that they need to function for 20+ years without any access. Ensuring quality is critical, and issues may arise due to thermal stress, packaging, and manufacturing-related defects: if undetected, these could lead to long-term reliability and performance problems.

The ISU group contributes to cold electronics QA/QC in DUNE. This is unique and makes use of institutional knowledge and resources that are specific to ISU. Significant progress has been made by the ISU group in developing inspection techniques for the DUNE cold electronics using Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) methods. We have demonstrated that a correlation technique applied to Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (SAM) images of Application Specific Integrated Circuits( ASICs), is highly sensitive to small structural changes in the ASIC interior that occur after cold cycling (i.e. cooling to cryogenic temperatures and then rewarming to room temperature) in liquid nitrogen. We have been developing techniques that are able to detect developing anomalies inside ProtoDUNE ADC-ASICs. The initial results from this work have recently been published.
In addition to detecting anomalies in warm chips after they are stressed by cold-cycling, it would be advantageous to observe changes in the ASIC structure that appear at cryogenic temperatures but do not persist after returning to room temperature. To enable this, we are working on implementing a cryogenic SAM, with measurements made in liquid nitrogen. This will allow us to observe and monitor chip anomalies as they occur under realistic operating conditions. As a bonus, differences in acoustic properties mean the cryogenic-SAM will provide better spatial resolution than the room temperature system, which uses water. Most of the design aspects of thermogenic-SAM have been completed, including modeling of the needed buffer rod and transducers for the measurements in liquid nitrogen. A first prototype has been assembled. We now have set up a cold-electronics laboratory here at ISU to test the functionality of the ASICs as well. Prof. Krennrich is leading this project.
Notable Recent Talks and Posters
- N. Poonthottathil, Reliability studies of application specific integrated circuits operated at cryogenic temperature, QNDE 2019, Portland, 2019
- Weinstein, Supernova Neutrino Experiments, NuPhys 2017: Prospects in Neutrino Physics, London, 2017
Notable References
- N. Poonthottathil et al, Inspection of Electronics Components for Cryogenic Temperature Operations, ASME, J Nondestructive Evaluation, 2020
- DUNE Collaboration, Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume II: DUNE Physics, arXiv:2002.03005, 2020
- DUNE Collaboration, Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume IV: Far Detector Single-phase Technology, arXiv:2002.03010, 2020