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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: World's deepest lab in Sichuan aims to capture dark matter China's Jinping underground laboratory, located in Sichuan's Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, is going to be expanded, according to a Nov. 28 report in US-based journal Science. The lab is 2,400m deep in the rock, making it the deepest lab in the world. Matter makes up 4% of the universe, while dark matter makes up 23% and dark energy makes up 73%, but currently the prevailing standard model can only account for matter, according to Astronomy in the Space Era: from Space Astronomical Observations to Nobel Prizes in Physics, a paper penned by Zhang Shuangnan, a physicist with the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dark matter does not emit light and does not give off electromagnetic radiation. It is invisible to the naked eye and currently no man-made technology is capable of detecting it. Physicists know it exists due to the gravitational effects it causes. In July 2009, the Chinese Academy of Science published Innovation 2050: Scientific and Technological Revolution and China's Future, which stated "Solving the riddle of dark matter and dark energy is another great leap in humanity's knowledge of the universe and it will likely lead to a revolution in physics. In view of this, there needs to be investment in experimental installations capable of exploring dark matter and dark energy, including underground and space-based particle detectors and a telescope at the South Pole, to enable the gathering of first-hand data and allow China to take a leading position in the global race for knowledge." Jinping is a mountain in the Yalong river area 100km northwest of Sichuan's Xichang. The peak is 4,193m above sea level. Jinping diverts the Yalong from its southerly flow, creating a 150,000m curve in the river. To build the Jinping hydroelectric power station, Yalong River Hydropower Development Company, formerly Ertan Hydropower Development Company, built two tunnels under the mountain at each end of the inverse "U," allowing the river to flow straight under, generating electricity from the flow. They also built maintenance tunnels under the mountain in addition to the tunnels for the water. In August 2008, Yue Qian, a professor at the Department of Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University saw information about the power station on the news and sought out the company, persuading them to dig out a cave near the maintenance tunnels which was covered with 2,400m of rock in order to build an underground lab. The lab is operated by Beijing's Tsinghua University and currently two different methods are employed to test dark matter: high purity germanium detector experiments and liquid xenon scintillation detector experiments. According to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission under the State Council, the expansion of the Jinping lab, including four units and eight labs, as well as supplementary facilities, will be completed at the end of 2015. The website of Science stated that in the first half of 2015 Yalong River Hydropower Development Company will dig out four 130m long caves, each measuring 13.2 m wide and 13.2 m tall, which will increase the laboratory space from 4,000 cubic m to 120,000 cubic m, making it second only to Italy's underground lab in terms of volume. The expansion is expected to cost around 300 million yuan (US$48.7 million), according to the journal. Yue Qian stated that he hopes that he can work in the expanded laboratory before the end of 2016. The head of the Panda X team in charge of the liquid xenon scintillation detector experiments at the lab, Ji Xiangdong, is a physicist at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Maryland University as well as having being selected for China's 1000 Talent Plan, aimed at recruiting foreign experts. "We plan to do an experiment which will capture dark matter, using 20 tonnes of liquid xenon," he said. This is more liquid xenon than has ever been used at similar facilities. The Panda X team currently use 37 kilograms of liquid xenon. In the newly expanded lab, the research team will also begin research into nuclear astrophysics. Nuclear astrophysics in an interdisciplinary field of research combining nuclear physics and astrophysics, using particle theory to research the evolution of celestial bodies. As mentioned above, the Jinping lab is covered by 2,400m of rock. The second deepest lab in the world is the Sanford Underground Laboratory (DUSEL), which is 2,300 m deep; Canada's SNOLAB ranks third at 2000m deep; the French Modane facility ranks fourth at 1,700m deep; Italy's Gran Sasso lab is 1,400m deep; the Boulby underground laboratory in the UK is 1,100m deep, while Japan's Kamioka lab is 1,000m deep; South Korea's YSL lab is 700m deep and the US Soudan lab is 600m deep. References: Zhang Shuangnan 張雙南 Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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