New Underground Laboratory Will Be Built In Chile

Scientists from around the world gathered for another meeting in the hall of the Chilean University of Santa Maria to discuss the innovative project ANDES , whose goal is to build a new scientific laboratory at a depth of 1,750 meters underground. The project is being developed as a joint initiative put forward by a group of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, who have merged into the CLES conglomerate and decided to take advantage of the cooperation between their countries. It is expected that the laboratory will attract interested scientists from all over the world, due to which Chile will become one of the major centers of research in elementary particle physics.

According to the estimates of the authors of the project, the cost of works will be around fifteen million US dollars, and all this will be located in the Coquimbo region on the border between Chile and Argentina under the 14 km tunnel now being built in the Andes between the towns of "Black Water" and "Vicuña", which Will unite the ports and major industrial and commercial centers of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America. This is the first and only in the southern hemisphere and the third in the depth of the twelve currently existing laboratories of this type, located also in Canada ( SNOLAB - the deepest in the world), Japan ( SuperKamiokande ), Spain ( Canfranc ) and Italy ( Gran Sasso ).

A specialist in elementary particle physics from the University of Santa Maria, who hosted the guests this time, and the project coordinator Claudio Deeb, told the public that the depth is extremely important in order to exclude the influence of cosmic radiation in the process of scientific experiments that primarily pursue such goals as neutron capture And the study of dark matter.

At the moment, the design stage is being completed , and approval has been received from the world scientific community, whose representatives enthusiastically embraced the news and are now encouraging and supporting their South American counterparts. Also, the initiators assure that with the financial resources, too, everything will be fine, although this issue has not yet been fully resolved - it is difficult to find investors. The funds have already partially arrived and are expected to come a little later from the four countries mentioned above, where there are certain groups interested in financing this project. By the way, at the next meeting at the University of Santa Maria, in addition to Chilean and foreign scholars, there was the head of the Senate of Chile, foreign diplomats, representatives of various ministries and the National Commission for Science and Technology and other important persons. It is expected that the work will begin soon enough, and the laboratory will be ready in 2018.