By Wendy Pitlick
Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD — Scientists with the MAJORANA collaboration achieved a milestone recently when they assembled the first string of five detectors used to study neutrinos.
Post doctoral student Ryan Martin, from Berkeley, Calif., headed underground and sealed the detectors into a vacuum-sealed, temperature controlled copper cryostat that will be enclosed in a lead shield. The detectors represent the first germanium crystals that have been assembled into the key components of the Majorana Demonstrator.

A scientist with the MAJORANA collaboration works to build a detector within a “glove box,” designed to keep sensitive detector parts away from naturally occurring radon in the lab. Photo courtesy of Sanford Lab

The detectors are prototypes, since they are being assembled with commercial copper. The actual detectors used in the experiment will be assembled with copper that was electroformed underground and free of any cosmic radiation, as well as a highly enriched form of germanium, said Ryan Martin, one of the leading scientists with the experiment.

Scientists with the Large Underground Xenon experiment show off the L-U-X, instead of Y-M-C-A, inside the massive water tank that will shield their dark matter detector. The LUX is getting ready to start taking data in early 2013, and the timing coincides with the governor’s proposal to add physics doctoral programs to two of South Dakota’s universities. Photo courtesy of Sanford Lab

By Wendy Pitlick
Black Hills Pioneer
LEAD — A physics doctoral program at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and the University of South Dakota, along with cutting edge physics conducted at the Sanford Lab are interconnected and integral to the state’s future of attracting intellectual property, economic development, and retaining students for advanced education, officials say.
In his 2013 budget proposal, Gov. Dennis Daugaard proposed the physics doctoral program, which will go hand-in-hand with world-class science conaducted at the Sanford Lab in Lead. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, lab officials say, as major experiments in dark matter detection and neutrino studies ramp up their efforts for major developments in early 2013.

This colorful cone is a three-dimensional map of rock above the Davis Campus. The point of the cone is at the 4,850 level. The open cut is at the top left.  Rock formations include the Ellison (in dark blue), the Northwest (light blue), the rhyolite dike (yellow), amphibolite (lavender), the Flagrock (gold), the Homestake (brown), the Poorman (green), and the Yates Member (hot pink at the bottom.) Graphic courtesy of Kathy Hart, Sanford Lab

By Wendy Pitlick
Black Hills Pioneer
LEAD — A new model that highlights the various types of rocks and rock densities at the Sanford Lab will help physicists understand the material particles have to travel through before they reach the Davis Campus, 4,850 feet underground.
Kathy Hart and Tom Trancynger, consulting geologists at the Sanford Lab, have been working to build a model that can best be described as an inverted cone of rock, with the point touching the Davis Campus, and the base of the cone reaching from the open cut to Kirk Gulch. The model showcases the many different rock formations within the 45-degree cone, the densities of the rock within those formations, and other characteristics of the land in that area. A model like this has never been constructed before, ... and will be very valuable information for physicists whose sensitive underground experiments depend, in part, on using a rock shield to get away from cosmic ray particles.