NEUTRINOS AND BEYOND
New Windows on Nature
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This project was supported by Grant No. PHY-0223181 between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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Cover: The Super-Kamiokande Detector. Courtesy of the Kamioka Observatory, Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR), University of Tokyo.
Copyright 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
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NEUTRINO FACILITIES ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE
BARRY C.BARISH,
California Institute of Technology,
Chair
DANIEL S.AKERIB,
Case Western Reserve University
STEVEN R.ELLIOTT,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
PATRICK D.GALLAGHER,
National Institute of Standards and Technology
ROBERT E.LANOU, JR.,
Brown University
PETER MÉSZÁROS,
Pennsylvania State University
HITOSHI MURAYAMA,
University of California at Berkeley
ANGELA V.OLINTO,
University of Chicago
RENE A.ONG,
University of California at Los Angeles
R.G.HAMISH ROBERTSON,
University of Washington
NICHOLAS P.SAMIOS,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
JOHN P.SCHIFFER,
Argonne National Laboratory
FRANK J.SCIULLI,
Columbia University
MICHAEL S.TURNER,
University of Chicago
Staff
DONALD C.SHAPERO, Director
TIMOTHY I.MEYER, Study Director (from October 2002)
JOEL R.PARRIOTT, Study Director (April 2002–October 2002)
PAMELA A.LEWIS, Project Associate
NELSON QUIÑONES, Project Assistant
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
JOHN P.HUCHRA,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
Chair
JONATHAN BAGGER,
Johns Hopkins University
GORDON A.BAYM,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CLAUDE R.CANIZARES,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
WILLIAM EATON,
National Institutes of Health
WENDY L.FREEDMAN,
Carnegie Observatories
FRANCES HELLMAN,
University of California at San Diego
KATHRYN LEVIN,
University of Chicago
CHUAN SHENG LIU,
University of Maryland
LINDA J. (LEE) MAGID,
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
THOMAS M.O’NEIL,
University of California at San Diego
JULIA M.PHILLIPS,
Sandia National Laboratories
ROBERT C.RICHARDSON,
Cornell University
BURTON RICHTER,
Stanford University
ANNEILA I.SARGENT,
California Institute of Technology
JOSEPH H.TAYLOR, JR.,
Princeton University
THOMAS N.THEIS,
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
CARL E.WIEMAN,
University of Colorado/JILA
Staff
DONALD C.SHAPERO, Director
ROBERT L.RIEMER, Senior Program Officer
MICHAEL H.MOLONEY, Program Officer
TIMOTHY I.MEYER, Program Associate
BRIAN DEWHURST, Research Associate
PAMELA A.LEWIS, Project Associate
NELSON QUIÑONES, Project Assistant
VAN AN, Financial Associate
Preface
The President’s FY 2003 Budget Request for the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction Account called for a National Research Council (NRC) review of the scientific merits of IceCube and other proposed U.S. neutrino projects in the context of current and proposed capabilities throughout the world. The NRC study request was formalized in a March 29, 2002, memorandum from John Marburger (director, Office of Science and Technology Policy) to Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences (see Appendix A). On April 8, 2002, Dr. Alberts agreed to form an assessment committee to conduct this review.
The NRC committee—the Neutrino Facilities Assessment Committee (NFAC)—was charged with providing scientific assessments of two possible future science initiatives: (1) IceCube, a very large volume detector of high-energy neutrinos proposed for the South Pole and (2) a possible deep underground science facility to be developed in the United States to pursue a broad range of fundamental questions in physics and astronomy. Fourteen persons were appointed to the committee, and the first meeting was held in June 2002, with delivery of the final report expected within 6 months.1
1 |
The complete charge to the committee is given in Appendix B. See Appendix C for the committee membership and Appendix D for agendas of the three full committee meetings. |
The committee interpreted its charge to be to
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Identify the major science problems that could be addressed by cubic-kilometer-class neutrino observatories;
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Identify the major science problems that could be addressed with a deep underground science laboratory; and
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Assess the scientific importance of the identified science and whether it could be addressed by other existing, soon to be completed, or planned facilities.
The committee’s assessment was to be performed in the context of current and planned neutrino capabilities throughout the world. Specifically, the study was to address the unique capabilities of each class of new experiment and any possible redundancy between the two types of facility.
The fast-track timeline required a very aggressive schedule and limited the breadth and depth of the committee’s analyses. The committee itself assessed the primary science potential of both projects but relied heavily on community input in addressing some of the broader issues in the charge. Although it learned of other interesting potential applications of a deep underground laboratory (e.g., geology, national security, and geobiology), the committee had neither the expertise nor the time to study them in depth. Likewise, evaluation of project issues such as technical readiness, costs, management, and so on was outside its charge, so the committee limited its study to what was needed for a realistic assessment of the science.
Comparing IceCube and a U.S. deep underground facility to other facilities where similar science might be addressed proved a complicated issue. The three possible projects in the Mediterranean Sea with which IceCube can be compared are well behind IceCube in technical development, making a direct comparison difficult. For these potentially competing water detectors, sites have not been selected, and neither the detailed technology nor the configuration of detectors has been determined, pending completion of prototype phases that are now under way. Therefore, the committee was able to compare these projects with IceCube only in a general way, considering, for example, the advantages of ice versus water as a high-energy neutrino detector.
For a deep underground facility, the report discusses a broad array of potential experiments (some to be done in the very long term). Some of these can and certainly will be undertaken elsewhere in the world. However, at this time, the experiments themselves, as well as the programs in the major facilities elsewhere in the world, are yet to be defined. Therefore, the committee focused on determining the requirements for such experiments (e.g., size, depth, distance from accelerator facilities) and what the advantages of a deep underground laboratory in the United States might be for some of the science planned. It could draw only limited
conclusions about what will be done elsewhere in the world, activity that will in fact depend to no small extent on what is undertaken in the United States. Considering a deep underground science facility, the committee did not focus on any particular site but, rather, discussed some of the science that would be possible at a generic deep underground laboratory, assuming that it would be operated as a shared-user facility and that proposals for experiments at such a laboratory would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Given the limitations described, the committee sought to identify the major classes of science problems that could be addressed with the general features of the two proposed facilities; to consider the worldwide status of existing, planned, or proposed experiments in these major areas of research; and to critically assess their scientific importance. The committee focused principally on physics experiments and did not assess proposed experiments in other scientific fields, nor did it conduct any cost-benefit analyses or attempt any finite budget prioritization. This decision was influenced by the makeup of the committee, the fact that the physics experiments would be the primary factor in motivating these types of laboratories, and the extreme urgency with which the study was requested. Finally, since both IceCube and deep underground science emphasize physics involving neutrinos, the committee addressed the possible redundancy and complementarity between IceCube and a deep underground laboratory.
The committee held two open meetings and one closed meeting, and it solicited a wide variety of inputs from the science community in the form of letters and presentations to the committee. A Web site was created with information about the committee, its meetings, and the inputs that it received. The NSF-sponsored International Workshop on Neutrinos and Subterranean Science (NeSS2002),2 held during the study period and attended by more than 300 scientists, produced much valuable information that the committee used in its assessments.
Finally, completing this report in a timely fashion depended on the dedicated work of the committee; numerous members of the scientific community who provided input, advice, and formal briefings; and the commitment of the staff of the Board on Physics and Astronomy, especially Joel Parriott and Timothy Meyer. The overall guidance of Don Shapero was invaluable, and the committee is also indebted to the reviewers, who suggested a number of substantial improvements to the report.
Barry Barish, Chair
Neutrino Facilities Assessment Committee
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
David Arnett, University of Arizona,
Steve Barwick, University of California at Irvine,
Alessandro Bettini, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare at Gran Sasso,
Roger Blandford, California Institute of Technology,
Norine Noonan, College of Charleston,
William Press, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Burton Richter, Stanford University,
Bernard Sadoulet, University of California at Berkeley,
Norman Sleep, Stanford University,
Lawrence Sulak, Boston University, and
George Trilling, University of California at Berkeley.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by John Ahearne (Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society) and Jonathan Katz (Washington University in St. Louis). Appointed by the National Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.