Chengdu, 7 Dec (Xinhua) -- Driving along the endless Jinping Mountain Tunnel and passing through the towering Jinping Mountain, this reporter arrived at the "underground city" located in the middle of the Jinping Mountain Tunnel of the Jinping Hydropower Station in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, at a depth of 2,400 meters. On December 7, the second phase of the China Jinping Underground Laboratory was officially put into operation.
This is the entrance to the east end of the Jinping Shan Traffic Tunnel. (Photo courtesy of Jinping Underground Laboratory Administration).
Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing Normal University and other universities and research institutes have 10 experimental project teams settled in the world's deepest and largest extremely deep underground laboratory. Watching the university research team get the key to the laboratory and enter the venue, Li Hongbi finally breathed a sigh of relief: "Everything went well!."”
As an employee of the Jinping Underground Laboratory Management Bureau of Yalongjiang Company, Li Hongbi is mainly responsible for the construction and project management of the second phase of the laboratory. "I came to Jinping at the end of December 2020 and participated in the construction of the second phase of the laboratory. ”
On November 7, Li Hongbi (left) communicated with the construction party in the experimental hall of Jinping Large Facility. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xu Bingjie.
Since the first phase of the Jinping Underground Laboratory was put into operation at the end of 2010, it has provided an excellent environment for dark matter research in China. With the continuous emergence of research results and the thirst for exploring "dark matter", the demand for experimental space for scientific research teams is increasing, and the construction of Jinping large facilities is on the agenda.
In addition to overcoming difficulties such as rockbursts and water surges, the construction of Jinping large facilities also needs to take into account the dual attributes of engineering and scientific research to ensure the "purity" of the laboratory - an extremely low radiation background environment.
What Li Hongbi and his colleagues have to do is to coordinate and integrate the needs of the design institute, the construction unit and the experimental group, run in again and again, and complete a safe and high-quality project construction without affecting the progress of the experiment.
Standing in the new experimental hall of Jinping Facility, Li Hongbi introduced the situation in the hall to reporters one by one, and as far as the eye could see, 141 major equipment and materials had extremely strict requirements, from cement, cave walls, ventilation pipes, to the base of light bulbs.
The construction scene of the construction of Jinping large facilities project. (Photo courtesy of Jinping Underground Laboratory Administration).
Low dosage, low output value, low radiation background control ......In the early days of construction, the team went to countless manufacturers with brochures, and the special requirements of "unheard of" discouraged many manufacturers. "Fortunately, some manufacturers are willing to help us overcome technical problems. Li Hongbi was deeply touched.
As a "post-90s", Li Hongbi likes new things and challenges himself, "putting the imaginative ideas of scientists into practice, and at the same time improving my ability to communicate and comprehensively coordinate." He said.
The reporter followed Li Hongbi into the laboratory of the "dungeon" and saw that the scientific research teams of various universities had begun to do research against time.
In recent years, Yalongjiang has built a scientific and technological innovation platform with the laboratory as the carrier, and used postdoctoral workstations with many universities to cultivate talents, and directly participated in scientific experiments as a partner.
This summer, Li Shuaijie, who graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a Ph.D., has a new identity - a joint postdoctoral fellow of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Yalongjiang.
His relationship with Jinping began in 2019, as one of the members of the pandax experimental team of Shanghai Jiaotong University, he and his classmates have been here for more than 1,000 days and nights.
On November 7, Li Shuaijie proofread the experimental data. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xu Bingjie.
The construction of Jinping large facilities and experimental research are intersected, and the unique conditions of Jinping Mountain continue to bring surprises to the research team.
Three years ago, the Pandax experimental team built a clean room in the second phase of the experimental hall that is still under construction, and the liquid xenon detection of dark matter is fiercely competitive in the world, and the background level of the detector is higher than expected, which brings great confidence to the team's experimental expansion. Searching without distractions, racing against time to run data, and achieving better experimental results as soon as possible are the things that researchers like Li Shuaijie continue to persist in and work hard for.
Here, Li Shuaijie not only has a clearer understanding of the research he has done, and has published 5 articles**, but also gained love, got married and started a family, "With the support of the doctoral station and my family, I can go on more firmly." Li Shuaijie said.
At a depth of 2,400 meters underground, there are still groups of young builders and scientific research workers like them who are working tirelessly ......They set sail here, crossing the vast sea of stars, exploring the mysteries of the universe and searching for the boundless space of mankind's future.