Remote Operation Center for USA based Experiment established at PU

Chandigarh, June 6, 2022: Head of International Co-Operation, DST, Govt. Of India, Shri S. K. Varshney inaugurated the Remote Operation Center (ROC) at Panjab University (PU) for the NOvA Experiment at Fermilab, USA on 4th June. This is the only and the first one of this kind in the entire country!  Prof. Sudhir Kumar, Director R&D Cell, Panjab University was the Guest of Honor for the event. Shri Varshney was accompanied by Shri Gaurav Aggarwal, Scientist “F” at DST. The inaugural ceremony took place in a hybrid mode. The Chairperson of the department, members of Experimental High Energy Physics group and various other dignitaries were present physically whereas members from other institutes of Indian Institues Fermilab Collaboration (IIFC) joined the event remotely. The group at PU is involved in extremely intriguing research programs as a part of various experiments at leading international collaborations such as CMS at CERN, NOvA and DUNE at Fermilab. Being one of the nine Indian institutes under the umbrella of IIFC-Neutrino Program, this ROC for the NOvA experiment will cater to all the Indian collabortors. The ROC-India is the only such center for NOvA experiment in the whole region of Asia.

From hardware upgrade to creating secure connections to Fermilab everything has been done by the members of the PU EHEP group. This ROC will support the NOvA experiment, located 11,700 km away, in data-taking operations, remote monitoring of the NovA detector system. With this accomplishment, the group at PU has acquired expertise in setting up Remote Operation Centres.

The  dignitries and the delegate visited all the detector hardware research labs in the department including the cyclotron. The inauguration was followed by an interaction with the Ph.D. Scholars of the EHEP group and the Chief Guests enlightened them by giving tips on being an effiecient researcher. This whole effort is supported and funded by DST, Govt of India as part of the Rs. 1.8 Crore grant sanctioned to the group as reported by Prof. Vipin Bhatnagar, Project Coordinator.