physics

Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory rather than just read about it. In short: The Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) is a laboratory 1 km deep in the Stawell Gold Mine, located in Stawell, Shire of Northern Grampians, Victoria, Australia. Together with the planned Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site (ANDES) at the Agua Negra Pass, it is one of just two underground particle physics laboratories in the Southern Hemisphere and shall conduct research into dark matter.

Key takeaways

Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) is a laboratory 1 km deep in the Stawell Gold Mine, located in Stawell, Shire of Northern Grampians, Victoria, Australia. Together with the planned Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site (ANDES) at the Agua Negra Pass, it is one of just two underground particle physics laboratories in the Southern Hemisphere and shall conduct research into dark matter. The project is a collaboration between six international partners. It will be led by the University of Melbourne with the Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Adelaide, the Australian National University, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. It is expected that the project will collaborate closely with the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. Construction commenced in 2019, and though it was expected to be complete by the end of 2021 due to delays from corporate mergers it opened in August 2022.

General information The project's Southern Hemisphere location has bearing on the possible differential detection of the putative WIMP-wind. Northern Hemisphere instruments are showing hints of a June "bump" of possible dark matter hits, which is expected given the galaxy's rotation, but it is hard to be sure that it is not a false signal due to some subtle seasonal environmental effect. A Southern Hemisphere location, on the opposite side of the Earth with its converse seasons, could help to provide valuable confirmation one way or another. Secondly, the sundry particles (apparently from the constellation Cygnus) would have travelled through the Earth itself before reaching SUPL's instruments. Finally, its Southern Hemisphere location also makes it potentially very sensitive to daily variation effects which would be a smoking-gun for self-interacting dark matter or dark matter with a significant stopping rate. Inasmuch as neutrino experiments do not benefit in the same way from a Southern Hemisphere location, and IceCube is already extant, it is unlikely that any neutrino detectors will be housed at SUPL.

Funding The first phase of the project received $1.75 million funding in the 2015 Australian federal budget. With matching funding from Victoria, construction started 2016 and was expected to be complete in 2017. However, a series of corporate mergers in 2015 and 2016 disrupted plans. The project was stalled when the new owners dismissed most of the labour force and shut down the Stawell gold mine to a "care and maintenance" state in December 2016. In December 2017, yet another new owner announced their intention to reopen the mine and were supportive of the underground laboratory, allowing hope that construction would restart. In 2019, the project resumed. The 2019 Australian federal budget included $5 million for SUPL, and in July 2019 a memorandum of understanding between Stawell Gold Mines Pty Ltd, the Shire of Northern Grampians, and the University of Melbourne was signed to build and operate the laboratory.

Construction SUPL is planned to be located at a depth of 1,025 metres (3,363 ft), providing approximately 2900 metre water equivalent shielding against background cosmic rays. As a decline (ramp) mine, cars and trucks can be driven to the laboratory site. The laboratory will consist of a bespoke cavity of approximately 10 metres high and 10 metres wide (33×33 ft) excavated into the rock from an existing part of the mine. The laboratory will be divided into 25 metres (80 ft) of clean room space for experiments, and 15 metres (50 ft) of "dirty" loading area. A side tunnel 5 m wide and 20 m long (15×65 ft) will house physical plant and personnel facilities.

SABRE

The first experiment planned for SUPL is SABRE (Sodium-iodide with Active Background REjection), based on 50 kg of thallium-doped sodium iodide. Two detectors will be built: one at LNGS and one at SUPL. Improving on the DAMA/LIBRA experiment, the SUPL detector implements additional features for background rejection: a 12 kL liquid scintillator veto, and a muon veto (experiment member, M. Mews, remains the expert on said muon veto). Consistent results between the two would be very strong evidence. As of August 2022, the SABRE experiment was expected to be constructed underground in SUPL during the last months of 2022, with data collection beginning in 2023. In October 2023, the first piece of equipment, the muon veto, was installed. In January 2024, the main muon system was installed. In April 2024, the SABRE collaboration published an executive summary providing in-depth details of the detector's design.

References

External links

SUPL and SABRE, University of Adelaide The Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics Archived 6 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

In research: Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2015 establishments in Australia, Laboratories in Australia, Neutrino observatories, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory in simple terms?

Why does Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory.