Abstract

I will present the current plans for high intensity proton accelerator development at Fermilab – both PIP -II accelerator complex as a driver in the near term towards the long-baseline neutrino experiment DUNE ( Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment ) as well as research and development on IOTA ( Integrable Optics Test Accelerator) as a test storage ring to enable future “smart booster” developments to go beyond PIP -II for multi-Megawatt proton beams for even higher intensity long baseline neutrinos. We will also touch upon two major precision experiments on the horizon in near future using muons: the “g-2” experiment to explore the anomalous magnetic moment of muons and the “Mu-2-e” experiment for exotic decays of muons, towards exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. Finally, tremendous advances have been made in the last two decades in precision ‘Quantum’ technologies and techniques in multiple disciplines e.g. SQUIDS , Qubit-based Cavity Electrodynamics, Atomic Beams, etc. . These advances promise to enable transformational research using ultra-sensitive probes to explore very “weak effects” on a laboratory scale. These weak effects are manifest everywhere in nature in material and living systems from the laboratory to outer space. Potential “mezzo-scale” experiments and facilities can be envisaged using “quantum sensors” to search for ultra-weak physical signals of fundamental significance to the “inner” and “outer” dimension of “vacuum” manifest in the “dark” universe and inflationary cosmology. We will illustrate via a few exciting examples discussed at the recent US DOE Round Table on Quantum Sensors in February 2016.