FASTTRACK is a crucial programme for the future of accelerator physics at Nikhef and CERN. KM3NeT++ will enable the completion of the KM3NeT neutrino detector in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nikhef director Jorgen D'Hondt is particularly pleased with these grants. ‘This scientific research is made possible by our technological innovations that shape experiments at particle accelerators and enormous telescopes. With both Roadmap projects, we are laying crucial foundations for realising two core components of our strategy to explore the unknown.’

Acceleration

The FASTTRACK programme focuses on new sensor techniques that will enable particle detectors at CERN to record particle collisions up to fifty times faster. This acceleration is necessary to untangle the deluge of particles in the LHC accelerator that will arise when, in the coming years, the particle beams become up to ten times more intense.

When the beams cross in the LHC, hundreds of protons collide almost simultaneously, creating thousands of new particles that fly through the detector. Reconstructing particle tracks from all the sensor signals is a challenge. By increasing the recording speed, proton-proton collisions can be distinguished from one another.

Rare processes

The hope is that more measurements will also reveal important, very rare particle processes, which can be used to test and improve existing particle theory. In the research programme, Nikhef, UvA and six more university partners (VU, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Maastricht, Groningen) are collaborating on everything from new chip technology to advanced software.

The newly developed techniques can be applied to improvements to the ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE detectors, three large experiments at CERN. The high-luminosity LHC is expected to become operational at CERN around 2030.

FASTTRACK coordinator Antonio Pellegrino of Nikhef calls the Roadmap grant crucial for particle physics. “Thanks to this grant, we can implement a fantastic programme of technological innovations, including new pixelated silicon sensors and electronics that offer unprecedented resolution in space and time, ultra-light mechanics and new cooling technologies. These are strategic investments that will not only give the Netherlands a leading position in the field of particle physics. They will also find applications in other scientific and medical fields.”

Vital importance

The second proposal that has been approved concerns an expansion of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea with another twenty lines in the French ORCA section, which will make it the most powerful neutrino detector in the world. With the new funding, ORCA can be completed.

KM3NeT++ project leader Paul de Jong of Nikhef and the University of Amsterdam also considers the grant to be crucial. ‘I am very pleased with NWO's continued support for this challenging and exciting project. Together with our partners in France and Italy, we are at the forefront of research into some of the most pressing questions in neutrino physics and astronomy.’

The international KM3NeT consortium is not only searching for the sources of neutrinos from the universe, but is also studying the properties of these still enigmatic particles. The hope is that the detector will finally determine the masses of the three types of ultra-light neutrinos.

Acoustic detector

n addition, a prototype of an acoustic detector developed in the Netherlands will be tested, which registers the sound waves of particles striking the deep sea water. This concept is new. Currently, the detector registers flashes of light in the dark deep sea.

Nikhef is one of the driving forces behind the KM3NeT experiment and is also building components for the detector lines in the deep-sea telescope in Amsterdam. In addition to Nikhef and the University of Amsterdam, Leiden University is also involved, as is the NIOZ maritime research institute on Texel, which wants to use the hydrophones to monitor the hunting behaviour of whales.

Material investments

In the current 2024 funding round, NWO is allocating € 21.7 million to FASTTRACK for material investments; the institutions themselves are financing € 31.5 million for personnel and travel expenses. For KM3NeT++, the allocation amounts to € 11.8 million for hardware, in addition to € 6.8 million in in-kind contributions by the partners.