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UK scientists and engineers have reached a major production milestone in a global mission to understand one of the biggest mysteries in the Universe: why there is so much more matter than antimatter.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have led a major UK effort to build half of the 137 giant neutrino sensors being built in the UK for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), marking an important step towards the experiment鈥檚 search for answers.

DUNE is a major international science project which, once complete, will send a beam of neutrinos 1,300 kilometres across the US, in a mission to explain why the Universe is made of matter rather than antimatter.

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the Universe and may hold clues to this mystery, but they rarely interact with matter, making them extremely difficult to detect.

DUNE will study the behaviour of these particles and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos to explain why matter dominates over antimatter in the Universe. The study will also look for neutrinos from exploding stars, known as supernovae.

A UK-wide production effort

The giant neutrino sensors, known as Anode Plane Assemblies (APAs), will detect the tiny electrical signals produced when neutrinos interact with liquid argon inside DUNE's enormous underground detector.

Each APA is 6.3 metres tall and 2.3 metres wide - roughly the height of a two-storey building. The sensors are being manufactured at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory.

by a team of 25 technicians and engineers led by The Univeristy of Manchester鈥檚, Professor Justin Evans, at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory by a team of 25 technicians and engineers, as part of a UK project whose Principal Investigator is Professor Justin Evans of The University of Manchester.

Together, the thousands of wires on the APAs will provide scientists with information used to reconstruct the position and movement of particles produced in neutrino interactions.

Professor Justin Evans, University of Manchester, PI of the DUNE-UK APA project, said: 鈥淭his is a major step towards realising DUNE. We are building a detector with the potential to answer some of the deepest questions in particle physics: why our Universe is dominated by matter, how neutrinos fit into our understanding of fundamental physics, and what we can learn from neutrinos produced by a supernova.

鈥淒UNE will be one of the world鈥檚 leading neutrino experiments, and it is enormously exciting to see the detector that will enable this science now taking shape.鈥�

Flagship instrumentation

DUNE is one of the most ambitious particle-physics experiments ever constructed. It will send a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab in Illinois to the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, 1,300 kilometres away.

University of Manchester researchers are playing leading roles across the DUNE project, from developing the computing systems needed to process up to 30 petabytes of data a year from the detector, to testing the APAs at CERN and planning their installation nearly a mile underground in South Dakota.

Extraordinary engineering

The APAs are the primary readout elements of one of DUNE's four kilotonne Far Detector modules, making them one of the UK's flagship instrumentation contributions to the experiment.

The UK is responsible for producing 137 of the 150 APAs required for the experiment.

Each carries approximately 24 kilometres of hair-thin copper-beryllium wire, held in place by thousands of precision connections across its enormous frame.

When a neutrino interacts inside the liquid argon, it produces charged particles that leave behind electrical signals in the detector.

The APA wires detect those signals, allowing scientists to reconstruct what happened and study the neutrino鈥檚 properties.

The completed APAs will ultimately be installed nearly a mile underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility, where DUNE's detector will contain tens of thousands of tonnes of liquid argon.

To date, eight completed APAs have arrived at Fermilab for final testing, ahead of their installation at the underground detector in South Dakota.

Collaboration in action

Ian Lazarus, Head of Technology at STFC's Daresbury Laboratory, said: "Reaching the halfway point on APA production is a fantastic milestone for everyone involved. These are exceptionally large and technically demanding detector components, and getting to this stage reflects the skill, care and teamwork that has gone into every part of the programme.

"From the engineers building the APAs at Daresbury Laboratory, to the university teams supplying components, carrying out testing and providing scientific expertise, this has been a genuinely UK-wide effort.

"It's exciting to see this work taking shape as part of DUNE, and to know that these detector panels will ultimately help scientists investigate some of the biggest questions about our Universe."

Looking ahead to discovery

Professor Dave Newbold, formerly executive director of National Laboratories at STFC and senior responsible officer for DUNE UK and now co-spokesperson of the DUNE collaboration said: 鈥淭he APA team have accomplished a huge milestone by reaching the halfway point in their production. The unique and complex components that are now making their way from the UK to the USA are a central component of the DUNE neutrino detector, and vital to address the ambitious scientific goals of the experiment. It鈥檚 great to know that profound questions about the universe are soon going to be answered through the efforts of workers across the UK, in industry, laboratories, and universities.鈥�

With half of the UK's 137 APAs now complete, work continues towards delivering all remaining assemblies to the experiment. The remaining APAs are due to be completed in April/May 2029 and delivered for installation in South Dakota between January and November 2029.