Speaker
Description
In modern physics, the mysterious nature of neutrinos remains largely unexplored, leading physicists to a multitude of theories and new experiments aimed at investigating their properties. For this reason, there is a strong motivation to develop innovative techniques which will employ new technologies for further study.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a prominent future neutrino detector with its main aims dedicated to determining the neutrino mass ordering and to study CP violation in the neutrino sector. Beyond these goals, the experiment will also investigate supernovae and solar neutrino detection while searching for physics beyond the Standard Model.
Now under construction in the United States in collaboration with Fermilab (Illinois), where the powerful neutrino beam will be produced, and the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, DUNE will consist of a modular structure with a Near Detector complex, located close to the neutrino beam, and a Far Detector (FD) 1300 km away. The FD will comprise four 17-kton Liquid Argon (LAr) Time Projection Chamber (TPC) detectors, two of them with already planned geometry while the remaining two are now under discussion. The detectors of Phase I of the experiment will be a vertical drift (VD) LArTPC and a horizontal drift (HD) LArTPC. Both HD and VD will investigate the possibility of detecting scintillation light in Liquid Argon using a Photon Detection System (PDS) composed of innovative detectors called X-ARAPUCA, with Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) serving as light sensors.
In the so-called Vertical Drift module, where the application of the electric field causes ionization charges to drift vertically toward the anode for subsequent collection, the X-ARAPUCAs are installed both on the detector walls and on the cathode to ensure optimal coverage of the liquid scintillator volume. However, in this configuration, powering the X-ARAPUCAs located on the cathode becomes challenging, as this region operates at high voltage ($\sim$300 kV), preventing the use of conventional copper cables. To address this issue, the DUNE Collaboration has proposed the use of Power over Fiber (PoF) and Signal over Fiber (SoF), an innovative technology in which both power delivery and signal readout are carried out via optical fibers.
This talk will present an overview of the PoF and SoF applications for DUNE and provide an update on the ongoing work with the Vertical Drift prototype at CERN, where, for the first time last summer, the full PDS was tested in a configuration as close as possible to that of the final experiment.