NSF VISION in PARTICLE and NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS Richard N. Boyd

1. NSF VISION in PARTICLE and NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICSRichard N. Boyd The Present Dark Matter Ultra high energy cosmic rays Ultra high energy gamma rays Neutrinos Nuclear Astrophysics The Future Next generation of the above Dark Energy; Cosmic Microwave Background Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab Main Source of “Guidance”: Connecting Quarks to the Cosmos

2. Cryogenic Dark Matter Search: CDMS is sited 2000 feet underground in the Soudan Mine (MN). It utilizes “towers” of six Si and Ge hockey-puck sized detectors, held at a few tens of mK, to look for the nuclear recoils from interactions with Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. This is currently the world’s best limit on WIMPS. What is the nature of the Dark Matter?

3. Whither the Next Generation Dark Matter Searches? Of course HE Physicists might produce them at LHC. But in the meantime: CDMS-II For the near future: XENON (liquid Xenon) WARP (liquid Argon) SuperCDMS (cmin) COUPP (bubble chamber) DRIFT (gas—directionality) PICASSO (superheated droplets) We (DOE, NSF) need advice of DMSAG, the Dark Matter Scientific Assessment Group!

4. Is there a GZK cutoff in the highest energy cosmic rays? AGASA (surface “muon” detectors): “no”. HiRes (air Cherenkov telescopes): “yes”. Although it appears that there IS a discrepancy, a ~30% energy renormalization would reconcile the data.

5. Pierre Auger Observatory, Malargue, Argentina: The VERY Near Future (& Present) Water Cherenkov surface detectors, and … Air Fluorescence detectors, to give simultaneous event observation with both methods. Do They Give the Same Answer??

6. Some Conclusions from High Energy Cosmic Ray Experiments From HiRes, the GZK cutoff has been seen. But confirmed (by Auger) in the surface detectors? From Auger, it’s not clear that the two techniques, air fluorescence and surface detectors, measure the same thing. New High Energy physics? Some “AGASA pairs” may be confirmed by HiRes, and seem to be correlated with BL-Lac objects, AGNs with jets, in which the jets are aimed at Earth. Still to determine: the composition of the high energy cosmic rays from ~1016 to 1020 eV. Is there a transition from heavier nuclei to protons? Are the UHECRs produced locally?

7. High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy Can we identify the sources of the Highest Energy g-rays? Milagro—”swimming pool” with PMTs and anti-coincidence. It offers a wide field of view and continuous monitoring. Has been running for several years. VERITAS—Air Cherenkov detection with a more conventional telescope and fast timing. 1011 to 1013 eV. Offers much higher energy resolution and sensitivity within its acceptance angle. VERITAS is already partially “on”, and should be in full “engineering mode” (all four telescopes, and some science) by end of 2006.

8. Milagro The Milagro detector, located in Jemez mts. near Los Alamos, NM Milagro observation of a diffuse source in the Cygnus region. This would not have been observable with detectors with smaller fields of view.

9. VERITAS VERITAS will consist of 4x12 m diameter telescopes to observe the Cherenkov light from air showers produced by ultra high energy g-rays. Two telescopes are currently running at the Whipple Base Camp site (southern AZ).

10. What is the nature of neutrinos? How does the Sun work? Solar Neutrinos--Borexino Borexino is being built in Gran Sasso. It will detect ne’s from the reaction: 7Be+e- 7Li+ne, which produces a monoenergetic ne line at 0.86 MeV. This will be the first real-time solar neutrino experiment to be capable of observing ne’s other than those from 8B  2a + e+ + ne.

11. What are the sources of HE ns? AMANDA/IceCube “Ice” Cherenkov detectors on strings, ~60 strings, to instrument a km3. All sky map of event directions; no significant sources observed at these (and even higher) statistics.

12. IceCube Data and Analysis

13. National Superconducting Cyclotron LabMichigan State University How are the Heaviest Elements Made?

14. The Un-NASA: DUSEL, Deep (down to 8000 feet) Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory Physics: bb-decay searches Solar neutrinos Long baseline (neutrino) detectors Proton decay detectors Dark matter searches GeoScience: Wave propagation in 3-D through rock Water flow in 3-D through rock Engineering: Constructing the DUSEL! Creating larger underground caverns than ever before done Biology: Searches for critters isolated from surface Search for life forms at high temperatures

15. DUSEL Where we are: Solicitation 1: Establish the Science and Engineering case for DUSEL. Nearly done. Solicitation 2: Propose to develop conceptual design. Eight proposals, down selected to two. They’ll complete work in late June, 2006. Solicitation 3: Propose to develop detailed design of DUSEL. Down select to one. FY2009: Major Research Equipment and Facility Construction?

16. DUSEL-Homestake would be in the Black Hills of SD in the no-longer-operating Homestake gold mine. This mine has many miles of existing tunnels, and goes to a depth of more than 8000 feet. Rock is well character-ized; no show stopper there. ml>

17. Henderson Mine (molybdenum) exists in Red Mt., so would provide much infrastructure. Mine will close in ~20 years, at which point all facilities would be turned over to DUSEL. Henderson DUSEL would have some horizontal access. DUSEL at Henderson, CO

18. Summary of the NSF Future in Particle and Nuclear Astrophysics Many exciting next generation experiments built on existing experiments Many exciting new initiatives, both as Experiments Infrastructure Way more exciting proposals than dollars to fund them: Appetite control needed