700 meters of loneliness

Text ｜ "China Science News" reporter Ni Sijie

The people who talked about the call came again, a group of young people. The boss smiled and put a few bowls of wonton in front of them.

The young people talked about the sky. What they said, the boss couldn't understand.

In this few places with foreigners, the locals are unsatisfactory. Basically, they talk about "from the middle microons". They dug a hundred -meter deep hole under the stone mountain, saying that they need to study a kind of one to study a kind of one It is called "neutron".

Dazshan is located in Jinji Town and Chishui Town, Kaiping City, Jiangmen, Guangdong. It is more than 200 meters high and granite body. Before the foreign people came, there was an abandoned quarry.

The boss tried to ask the young man what you have to study. Some weird nouns have put the chat in a deadlock. Over time, the boss stopped asking more, and the young people no longer said that he sold his wonton, they ate their wonton, just smile.

Cave at the bottom of the mountain

It was the only time for a master's student Li Yuewen to eat down the mountain. She has been here for more than a month. Except for the dinner, she stayed at the engineering site at other times. The traffic was inconvenient and the work was too busy.

Li Yanwen is a Northeast girl. She studied graduate students at the Institute of High -Energy Physics (hereinafter referred to as high -energy physics) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Essence She came here to promote a ambitious plan with her teachers and classmates -installing giant organic glass balls at 700 meters underground.

Every day, she was sitting on a 1267 -meter diagonal well in a rumbling mining car, and then walked through a stuffy and humid slope. It's almost 20 minutes, and it is half an hour. After a trip, the sweat on his body was sticky.

When the terrain is gentle, she will meet a local aunt who watched the venue. At first, the aunt would greet her wearing a shoe cover, a clean suit, a hair cover, and sending her to the wind chamber to blow off the dust on her body. After a few times, they nodded only when they met, and then the aunt continued to swipe her mobile phone.

From the wind chamber, I entered the stone cave with an air conditioner and ventilation system, which was much better than the outside. This is currently the largest underground artificial stone cave in China. There is a huge cylindrical pool inside. The inner wall is covered with black materials, like a black -painted "big barrel". The width of the barrel is 43.5 meters and 44 meters deep, and the concrete structure cannot be seen.

There is already a huge stainless steel ball in the "big barrel", which is the "skeleton" of the entire device. The organic glass ball with a diameter of 35.4 meters will be supported.

The glass ball just started to install it not long ago. Due to the limited cross section of the tunnel, the glass ball cannot be installed and then transported into the cave, so they divide the large glass balls into 23 layers, 265 yuan, the first layer of 3, the second floor 4, and the most layer is 15 yuan. Put from top to bottom.

The center of the "Big Barrel" has a gimbal, which is equivalent to the workbench. At a height of 38 meters, it can be lifted and extended. With a deep breath, Li Yan heard his hands and feet and climbed the almost vertical ladder to climb up.

On the stage, the first two layers of the organic glass ball have been spelling, and the spherical and steel frame are connected by a metal rod. Yundai is a "battlefield" of Li Yewen, and the opponent is an invisible or "force". Through the sensor on the metal rod, Li Yowen can understand the strength of the metal rod pulling the glass ball. She wants to adjust the length of the metal rod so that the sphere is uniform. Only in this way, the glass ball can sit directly and steadily to the center of the steel ball.

"War" for more than a month, the progress is slow, and various unexpected problems often occur. In the WeChat group named "President Ma and her younger brothers", Li Yanwen often reported to Mr. Ma's work progress and problems.

The name "General Ma" is Ma Xiaoyan, a senior engineer of the high -energy institute and chief engineer of the micro -experiment in Jiangmen. He is not tall. He wears a white helmet all day. The shoot. At work, Magli President is strict, and even eating is often arranged: "You go down first after eating, look at the data of the installer, and see the data of the data, I will arrive in a while ... ... "

In her spare time, President Ma was very "spoiled" her "younger brothers". Recently, some people inadvertently said, "I really want to eat beach barbecue". The Ma President Ma set up a barbecue rack on the lawn of the experimental station that night to set up meat skewers, drinks and various snacks.

The installation progress of organic glass is slow. Although everyone is a bit anxious, but not panic, because President Ma predered by Wang Yifang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the chief scientist of Jiangmen Zhongmei experiment, and the law of the law: "When you pretend to be two layers of glass, you must not urge me to make progress. Let's install the two layers first, and I will chase you back in the progress of the following. "Wang Yifang trusted her very much, and he never urged it once.

About 9 months, the organic glass ball can be formed. After that, through the "chimney" left by the top of the glass ball, scientists will fill the glass ball with 20,000 tons to make the neutron "flickering" liquid, and in the glass, and in the glass The "big barrel" outside the ball is filled with 35,000 tons of ultra -pure water, which is used to block the fake neutrinos signal caused by the cosmic line.

Ma Xiaoyan said that when the neutron passes through the sphere, there will be a certain probability to respond to the densely dense hydrogen nucleus in the liquid. Each reaction generates a positive electron and a neutron, and the positive electrons immediately annihilated a fast signal, and the neutron was absorbed and released by other hydrogen nuclei after repeated collisions. Exposure the whereabouts of the neutron.

The first two layers of glass are very careful, and the error of a little bit must be adjusted. Li Yanwen was often busy when he was busy closing the door. The posture of Xiayundai is a symbol of qualifications. Her classmate Wang De Run came earlier than her, and she could already be as good as going down the stairs. Li Yanwen couldn't. She had to hurry up the armrest, cooperate with her hands and feet, and step back as quickly as possible, and then rushed to the meal in front of the rice room. The dining room was a simple house. The whole house rang in the rain, and everyone shouted with a throat. Each meal of the canteen provides three dishes and one soup, one and two plain, and most of them come to eat "scientific research." Workers are more willing to drive themselves. They think that "the rice room is too small, and the taste of scientists is too light."

There are also some local workers eating here, but they rarely chat with the workers in both Li Yanwen or Ma Xiaoyan. On one occasion, a 20 -year -old truck driver suddenly asked Ma Xiaoyan "what is the neutron". Ma Xiaoyan crooked his head for a long time, and finally shrugged and said, "I don't know."

There are actually many answers in Ma Xiaoyan's mind. For example, neutron is a dark matter particles, with quality, and one of the most basic particles in nature, or neutrinos are 12 basic particles that constitute the material world. Most of the three types of the universe are the residues of the Big Bang of the Universe, about 300 per cubic centimeter. But thinking about it, these answers seem to only make the young man more confused.

Therefore, she gave WeChat for help to High Energy Institute and an associate spokesperson for Jiangmen Zhongwei Experiment. Cao Jun, who had done the 18 -year Micro -Ob with a long time, also pondered for a long time. Finally, he intercepted the chat dialogue with Ma Xiaoyan and sent it on a personal Weibo with "V". Please help the idea.

Jiangmen Zhongyou experimental on -site aerial photography. High -energy drawing

The status quo in the "big barrel". High -energy drawing

The inclined well tunnel in construction. High -energy drawing

Climb to the gimbal. Photo by Liu Yuexiang

Stronger

Although they do not often chat with workers, most scientists who work at the experimental site say that communication with workers is a necessary prerequisite for ensuring the smooth progress of the project. However, because there are many harsh indicators in the project, communication often wipes the smell of gunpowder.

In the "big bucket", scientists are afraid of gray because the gray will interfere with the results of the experimental observation. Wang Yifang said that according to the plan, the organic glass ball should be over 20,000 tons of chemical liquid, and the amount of dust in the liquid cannot exceed 0.008 grams.

This means that it cannot be gray from the beginning of the installation. Wearing clean clothes, hoods, hairs, hairless ... The cumbersome entry process made many workers feel fresh at the beginning, but Ma Xiaoyan found that the workers were "bothering slowly."

In the world, dust is always inevitable. In order to make the "big bucket" clean as possible, Ma Xiaoyan often invites workers to remove the "barrel" to remove the ash. "Take the gray a little bit." Ma Xiaoyan aggravated his tone on the word "sucking". After a few big men nodded, they turned to climb the steel frame. When Ma Xiaoyan looked up at his hands, the Han was holding the gray on the top of the shed with a rag. "No, you have to" suck ". You wipe it like this, and the gray is still in the barrel." Ma Xiaoyan said. "Isn't it just clean?" Workers couldn't understand and felt that scientists were "annoying." "The cleanliness you understand is not a concept with the cleanliness we ask." Ma Xiaoyan was helpless. After several times, Ma Xiaoyan was dry, and the man was worn out of patience, but in the end, he had to climb up again to suck ash.

Scientists are also competing with materials and equipment manufacturers. Manufacturers who have produced for decades have been "tortured" and have lost their temper. But every time I bring visitors to visit, Wang Yifang emphasized that "this is the purest organic glass in the world" "I can't touch it without wearing gloves." If the manufacturer happened to be at the scene, he would also introduce the factory in charge of the factory to the visitors.

Scientists are also competing with themselves everywhere. There is a 20 -inch photoelectric pipe in the device, which is equivalent to the "eyes" of the experiment. There are 20,000 pieces. It is installed on the steel ball frame, straight into the glass ball, and the light signal emitted in the "stare". In order to make the "eye" as much as possible, they require only 3 mm pipes between the optoelectronic pipes. Qin Zhonghua and his wife Xu Meihang, the person in charge of the Optical Division Pipeline Group, worked in the optoelectronic pipe tube testing and protection group. In 2015 and 2016, the most tense development of the optoelectronic pipe waterproof packaging packaging was the most tense. After how many times, Xu Meihang said, "I won't do it with you", but it won't be long before she will return to the laboratory to continue working. "In those two years, it collapsed, and he was stringed every day. He discussed his work as soon as he was free." Xu Meihang told the Journal of China.

When digging the tunnel, Li Xiaonan, a researcher at the high energy institute, took the workers and dug it according to the equipment size. Li Xiaonan had done electronics research in the Dakako experiment in Da Ya Bay. Rigidity is the most basic professional literacy. In September 2012, he and Wang Yifang went to investigate the selection. Since 2013, he has lived in Kaiping as the head of infrastructure. In the past 10 years, they dug out tunnel stone caves on the abandoned quarry, covered the dormitory cafeteria, and welcomed a batch of equipment and installation personnel to enter the field. Li Xiaonan was generous and bold, with the dark arms with a scab that was bitten by mosquito, but there was a delicate little romance of scientists in his heart. The time Ma Xiaoyan Zhang Luo's beach barbecued, Li Xiaonan also went. When he heard that it was "beach barbecue", he immediately returned to the dormitory to change the beach pants. He said that as long as there is a beach in his heart, he can "be beaches barbecue" everywhere.

The harshness and compliment of scientists are difficult to understand. When they died of the force of the glass ball, some people said, "Can the glass ball do a thicker point?" When they died the technical issues related to the optoelectronic pipe increase, some people said, "Isn't it okay to buy foreign countries?" When they died of the size of the tunnel, some people said, "Can you dig a bigger?"

"What about money?" Both Ma Xiaoyan and Wang Yifang asked. At present, the United States, Japan and other countries are under construction. The Microon experiments are spent only one -seventh in the United States and half of Japan.

"Advanced" and "saving money" are both issues they must consider. This device has two goals: one is to measure the quality order of the neutron. At present, scientists already know the relative quality of three neutrinos. The mysterious person in the middle of the middle; the other is to promote the development of the cutting -edge technology in China, so that the technologies and industrial manufacturing fields such as optoelectronic pipelines, organic glass, and sensors are rushed to the international advanced level.

"If you want to pursue scientific excellence and leading technical indicators, you must bear certain risks." Wang Yifang said.

The design life of the experiment is 30 years. After the installation was completed in February 2024, the "big bucket" will be completely capped, and a grain of light cannot enter. The next time you open it, you will wait until 30 years or even more. In the past 30 years, the device has not left any possibilities for maintenance.

As the proposal of the project, Wang Yifang will also have some concerns: "Organic glass balls have begun to install now, what should I do if it is cracked? So in case of a place where multiple pipelines are connected, if there is no place to be sealed, what should I do?"

It is precisely because they foresee various risks that they are more harsh on themselves and others. "If you don't want to bear risks, it is best to sleep at home." Wang Yifang said.

Mr. Ma (second from left) discussed the problem while eating with her "younger brothers". Photo by Ni Sijie

Wang Yifang (medium) and photoelectric double pipe installation company personnel discussed technical details. Photo by Ni Sijie

Workers working on steel frames. High -energy drawing

President Ma in the "Big Barrel". Photo by Liu Yuexiang

Underground "Starry Sky"

Of the workers, visitors, and local residents, few people can see the "international technology cutting -edge" level, and they cannot understand the harshness and competency of scientists. However, they can feel this intuitively.

From the time of the stone cave, some people have come to visit one after another. In addition to the employees of some local units and the students in primary and secondary schools, there are also leaders to inspect, and sometimes there are "foreigners". "This is a state support." A worker responsible for watching the groundwater and drainage equipment said that he could feel that he has always been Kaiping City with a business card and has a new business card.

Ma Xiaoyan remembers that after the steel frame was installed, the workers took photos to their family members. "When they talk about neutralized experiments, their family members know" "I think it is proud to be able to work here."

Pride is the emotion that connects workers and scientists. Ma Xiaoyan also often sends new progress to her family. She will also update her circle of friends from time to time, send some photos of the detector to install new progress, or the media's report on Jiangmen's middle micro -experiment.

Ma Xiaoyan herself and her circle of friends are not like a person. At the engineering site, she was often sweaty. When she was busy, someone would ask her to ask another thing from time to time. But in the circle of friends, Ma Xiaoyan is more like a grounded female artist. She likes photography and music. At the end of the year, she will change from "President" to "horse guide".

At the end of the year, Ma Dao has to make annual videos for the Chinese micro -research team, 12 years.

In the past two years, before Jiangmen's middle micro -experiments, she did a video of the Dya Bay Microcytopenic experiment before it started.

Da Ya Bay Medicine Experiment is China's first large -scale neutrinous experiment. It is located in a cave about 50 kilometers east of Shenzhen District, next to the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station and Lingao Nuclear Power Station. Construction of the soil in 2007 and officially operated in 2011. In March 2012, Daya Bay neutralized experiment announced that it discovered a new neutrinos oscillation mode and was selected by Science Magazine as one of the top ten scientific breakthroughs in 2012.

Since 2009, Wang Yifang and colleagues have seen the importance of the quality sequencing of neutrinos, and began to brew and put forward the concept of Jiangmen neutron experiments. The most economical way to study the neutron is to use the neutrinos generated by the nuclear power plant to do experiments to avoid building an expensive accelerator. The quality order of the microons is 50 kilometers to 55 kilometers from the reactor, and the distance between all reactors must be equal to all reactors.

Wang Yifang was lying on the map. In 2012, he found the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station and the Taishan Nuclear Power Station, connected two points to draw a central axis, and then found mountains in areas from 50 kilometers to 60 kilometers from two nuclear power plants to two nuclear power stations. Wang Yifang was lucky because geologists found the stone mountain for him. Under the leadership of the design unit, Wang Yifang ran around the mountain for a day, and selected the current Jinji Town from the 12 possible tunnel entrances. By 2013, the Jiangmen neutralized experiment was officially established.

After 2012, in the annual video of Ma Dao, the content of the Jiangmen neutron experiment began to increase slowly. In 2020, Da Ya Bay China Micro -Treasted Experiment was announced. Since then, the Jiangmen Zhongmei Experiment has become the big protagonist in the annual video of the Ma Dao.

In the past 12 years, in order to make annual videos, Ma Dao dug his colleagues' artistic background.

In 2021, she gathered Wang Derun, a student who would compose and play guitar, Yang Xiaoyu, a colleague who could write poems, and Li Yanwen, a student who played Guzheng, and other "talented young people". Songs make the series of annual videos ushered in "the highest light moment in history". The Chinese version of the song sang like this: "I have seen the dusk of Jiangmen, the early morning of dew, and the depths of the seven hundred meters underground, there is my enthusiasm for unchanged." In 2019, the domestic animation "Nezha" and the classic line "I am I can't help but "red all over the river. Ma Dao was very touched, and the students who were good at picture editing made Wang Yifang PS into "Wang Nazha". In the video, Wang Yifang's face was printed on Nezha's face, and the red and blue logo of the micro -experiment in Jiangmen shining on his head. On weekdays, Wang Yifang, the director and chief scientist of Gao Energy, was unsmiling, and no one dared to joke with him. I have the opportunity to get happy with Wang Yifang. Everyone feels enjoyable and calls "Ma Dao Mighty". Wang Yifang was not angry. Once, his colleague went to him and happened to see him watching the annual video. He sat alone in front of the computer.

At the end of 2018, Ma Dao wanted to give the video a highlight, so he went to Wang Yifang to discuss calligraphy. Wang Yifang said at the beginning and said, "I haven't written it for a long time." After a few days, Ma Dao personally took his colleagues who could take photography, holding the pen and ink, and went directly to Wang Yifang's office. Looking at the desk that was quickly covered by the first -class rice paper, Wang Yifang smiled, lifted a big pen, and closer to the pen tip, but I thought about it and still did not want to directly write directly on the rice paper. It's not good, write it again, and almost mean it, write it again ... After being skilled, write "Spring Wind Ten Miles" on the rice paper. That year, the theme song of the annual video was changed from "Ten Miles of Spring Wind".

Wang Yifang hangs a painting in the office of Beijing, named "Smooth", and painted Newton under the apple tree. After the major discovery of the Dakaki experiment in Daya Bay, his friend and painter Mr. Huang Yongyu gave him the painting. Mr. Huang once said in a speech: "The apple falling from Newton's head is the same as any apple. The difference is Newton's head."

The first person who went to Wang Yifang's office would almost stare at the painting and look. In this painting, Wang Yifang's pride. "A place worthy of the pride of scientists is‘ I just do the best, you ca n’t do better than me ’.” Wang Yifang said.

Recently, Huang Yongyu, 99, painted another painting called "Tonight", with a dark blue starry sky. He said: "People should have the right to live like tonight, and live the day of Ning Xin today."

In Jiangmen's middle microphone experiments, Wang Yifang and other scientists found a special starry sky and unique Ningxin in the 700 -meter underground.

It was an early morning. Ma Xiaoyan took the student's debugging all night. The stone cave suddenly stopped the power and was dark. Everyone turned on the flashlight lighting and suddenly found that the reflective marks used to mark the position were all bright, with starlight.

700 meters of "Starry Sky" underground. Photo by Ma Xiaoyan

Jiangmen neutron experiment under the starry sky. High -energy drawing

Journal of China (2022-08-25 Person 4)

Edit | Zhao Lu

Capture | Zhihai

/>

- END -