What significant event was happening to Mu2e between Nov 2008 and Dec 2008?
Mu2e Mu2e , or the Muon-to-Electron Conversion Experiment , is a particle physics experiment at Fermilab in the US . The goal of the experiment is to identify physics beyond the Standard Model , namely , the conversion of muons to electrons without the emission of neutrinos , which occurs in a number of theoretical models . Project co-spokesperson Jim Miller likens this process to neutrino oscillation , but for charged leptons . Observing this process will help to narrow the range of plausible theories . The experiment will be 10,000 times more sensitive than previous muon to electron conversion experiments , and probe energy scales up to 10,000 TeV . Timeline . Prior work . Physicists have been searching for flavor violation since the 1940s . Flavor violation among neutrinos was proven in 1998 at the Super-Kamiokande experiment in Japan . In 1989 , Russian physicists Vladimir Lobashev and Rashid Djilkibaev proposed an experiment to search for lepton flavor violation . The experiment , called MELC , operated from 1992 to 1995 at the Moscow Meson Factory at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia , before being shut down due to the political and economic crises of the time . In 1997 , American physicist William Molzon proposed a similar experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory . Research and development on the MECO experiment began in 2001 , but funding was pulled in 2005 . Development . Mu2e is based on the MECO experiment proposed at Brookhaven , and the earlier MELC experiment at Russias Institute for Nuclear Research . Research and development for the Mu2e experiment began in 2009 , with the conceptual design complete in mid-2011 . In July 2012 , Mu2e received Critical Decision 1 approval ( the second of five critical decision levels ) from the Department of Energy , about one month after initial review . Project Manager Ron Ray asserted , I know of no other project that has received sign-off that quickly after review . Funding of the Mu2e experiment was recommended by the Department of Energys Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel , in its 2014 report . Construction and operation . Groundbreaking on the detector hall took place on April 18 , 2015 , with the hall expected to be complete in late 2016 . Commissioning of the experiment is anticipated in 2019 , and preliminary results are possible by around 2020 . The experiment is expected to run for three years . Later improvements to the detector may increase the sensitivity of the experiment by one to two orders of magnitude , allowing a more in-depth study of any charged lepton conversion that may be discovered in the initial run . Design . The Mu2e apparatus will be in length , and will consist of three sections . The total cost of the experiment is $271 million . Muon production . Repurposed elements from the Tevatron collider will be used to generate and deliver an 8 GeV proton beam . The protons would be extracted from Fermilabs Delivery Ring through a non-linear third-integer resonance extraction process and sent in pulses to the tungsten target . These protons will then collide with the tungsten production target in the production solenoid , producing a cascade of particles including pions , which decay into muons . Mu2e will produce between 200 and 500 quadrillion ( 2×10 to 5×10 ) muons per year . For every 300 protons hitting the production target , about one muon will enter the transport solenoid . Transport . The 4.5-Tesla magnetic field of a production solenoid will direct some of the particles produced into an S-shaped 2-Tesla evacuated transport solenoid , consisting of 50 separate superconducting electromagnets , which will select muons by charge and momentum , and carry the desired slow muons to the detector after some time delay . Detection . On entering the detector solenoid , the muons will hit ( and stop within ) an aluminum target that is about 0.2 mm thick , entering orbitals around nuclei within the target . Any muons which convert into electrons without emitting neutrinos will escape these orbitals and enter the detector with a characteristic energy of 104.97 MeV ( which is the muon mass minus the binding energy of about 0.5 MeV and nuclear recoil energy of about 0.2 MeV ) . The detector itself consists of two components : a straw tracker to measure the momentum of outgoing particles ; and an electromagnetic calorimeter to identify which particle interactions to record for further study , identify what type of particle passed through the tracker , and to confirm the measurements of the tracker . An electron with energy of around 105 MeV will indicate that the electron originated in a neutrinoless muon conversion . In order to disturb the path of the electrons as little as possible , the tracker uses as little material as possible . The wire chamber tracker consists of panels of 15-micron-thick straws of metalized mylar filled with argon and carbon dioxide , the thinnest such straws ever used in a particle physics experiment . Electronics at each end of the straws will record the signal produced when electrons interact with the gas in the straw , allowing the trajectory of the electrons to be reconstructed . Sensitivity . The rate of neutrinoless conversion of muons to electrons was previously constrained by the MEG experiment to less than 2.4×10 , and further constrained to 7×10 by the SINDRUM II experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland . Mu2e has an expected sensitivity of 5×10 , four orders of magnitude beyond SINDRUM II , meaning that it will see a signal if as few as one in 100 quadrillion muons transforms into an electron . Collaboration . , the Mu2e collaboration included 240 people from 40 institutions in six countries . The collaboration is led by co-spokespersons Douglas Glenzinski ( Fermilab ) and Jim Miller ( Boston University ) . The project manager for Mu2e is Ron Ray ; the deputy project manager is Julie Whitmore .