The second phase of a major EU-funded project, LAGUNA-LBNO project, focused on the construction of a next-generation neutrino observatory gets underway. The phase will run until 2014 and it will focus on assessing how feasible it is to create a pan-European research infrastructure able to host the very large volume, deep-underground neutrino observatory.

The Commission announced the begin of LAGUNA-LBNO ('Design of a pan-European Infrastructure for large apparatus studying grand unification, neutrino astrophysics and long baseline neutrino oscillations') project second phase, which involves scientists from all around the world and it will run until 2014. The project is funded in part by €4.9 millions under the 'Capacities' Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

This new phase is based on the first phase results. The first phase of the project involved studying seven pre-selected potential locations in Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Finland and the United Kingdom, and providing a detailed geotechnical assessment of the giant underground cavern. The conclusion was that no geotechnical barriers to cavern construction exist. This second phase of the project will now build on these preliminary findings and address two challenges vital to making a final detector and site choice: determining the full cost of underground construction, commissioning and long-term operation of the infrastructure; and determining the full impact of long baseline neutrino beams from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Neutrinos interact very weakly with matter, so they can travel very large distances in space and traverse dense zones of the Universe, therefore providing unique information on their sources. Underground neutrino detectors based on large, surface-instrumented, liquid volumes have achieved fundamental results in particle and astroparticle physics, and have been able to simultaneously collect events from several different cosmic sources. The LAGUNA-LBNO team believe that to combine these two technologies, a next-generation, very large, multipurpose, underground neutrino observatory with a total mass of around 100.000 to 500.000 tonnes is needed.