On 13 October, the ground-breaking ceremony for the Daya Reactor Neutrino Experiment, China's largest single international collaboration project in basic science as well as the biggest one between US and China, was held at Daya Bay Nuclear Power Base in Shenzhen.
On 13 October, the ground-breaking ceremony for the Daya Reactor Neutrino Experiment, China's single largest international collaboration in basic science as well as the biggest one between US and China, was held at Daya Bay Nuclear Power Base in Shenzhen.
Chaired by CHEN Hesheng, director of the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), the ceremony was attended by high-level officials, including CAS Executive Vice President BAI Chunli, Vice Minister of Science and Technology CHEN Jinpei, Vice Governor of Guangdong Province ZHONG Yangsheng, Vice President of the National Natural Science Foundation of China SHEN Wenqing, Associate Director of Office of Science under the US Department of Energy Robin Staffin, Vice Mayor of Shenzhen City LI Ming and General Manager of the Guangdong Nuclear Power Group HE Yu. Nobel laureate T. D. Lee sent his congratulations to the ceremony.
The neutrino, one of the fundamental particles in nature and building blocks of our universe, has a very important role in both the microscopic view of particle physics and the macroscopic view of evolution of the universe, says Prof. BAI Chunli. "As its enforcement and administration body, CAS will render support to the project, as in the past."
The Daya Experiment has involved about 190 researchers from more than 30 institutions in China (including Hong Kong, Taiwan), US, Russia, and the Czech Republic, according to Chief Scientist of the Experiment and IHEP Vice Director WANG Yifang. At present, the designs of the detectors for the experiment and their prototypes have been completed, and its building will be soon started. It is expected that the first detector will be in place in 2009, and the first data-taking with final configuration in late 2010, according to Prof. Wang.
