The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory of the US Department of Energy has signed a project planning agreement with Poland’s Wrocaw University of Science and Technology. With the signing, WUST became a part of the international team working on Fermilab’s Proton Improvement Plan-II, or PIP-II project.
PIP-II is a new linear accelerator that is part of Fermilab’s accelerator complex renovation. It’s a critical upgrade that will power the world’s most intense high-energy neutrino beam for the worldwide Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which will be hosted at Fermilab’s Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility. PIP-II will give a world-class scientific infrastructure to the worldwide particle physics community, enabling discovery-focused research, transforming our knowledge of nature, and strengthening the link between breakthroughs in basic science and technological innovation.
WUST joins a large list of PIP-II colleagues from across the world, including 11 universities in France, India, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom, as well as four national laboratories. PIP-II is the first particle accelerator constructed in the United States, with major contributions from foreign partners. It is principally funded by the US Department of Energy.
WUST’s contributions to PIP-II draw on the university’s expertise in cryogenics and next-generation superconducting accelerator technologies, which are crucial components of the superconducting linear accelerator in PIP-II. WUST aims to supply design and hardware for the cryogenic transfer lines for the 215-meter-long PIP-II accelerator, having previously contributed to the European X-FEL and European Spallation Source projects.
“WUST has a long history of contributing successfully to international scientific initiatives all around the globe,” stated Arkadiy Klebaner, technical director of PIP-II. “We are thankful to our Polish partners for their world-class experience, contribution, and support in the development of a cutting-edge particle accelerator that will power DUNE’s neutrino beam and allow scientific discoveries for decades to come.”
Professor Maciej Chorowski, who spearheaded WUST’s role in the creation of the PIP-II cryogenic system, remarked, “The cryogenic team at WUST is tremendously driven to contribute to the PIP-II accelerator.” “We recognize the technical difficulty as well as the worldwide scope of this important project.”
The US Department of Energy’s Office of Science supports Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The Office of Science is the single biggest funder of fundamental research in the physical sciences in the United States, and it is trying to solve some of the world’s most serious problems. Visit science.energy.gov for additional details.