CASPAR achieves first plasma milestone on path to restart at SURF

CASPAR is a low-energy particle accelerator that is helping scientists at SURF understand how stars forge matter.

Lead, SD, Aug. 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Compact Accelerator System for Performing Astrophysical Research (CASPAR) is housed deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. CASPAR can recreate the conditions inside stars.

The fusion reactions that occur in different types of stars make up most of the matter we know in the universe today. This means the elements that comprise rocks and water and elephants and humans—and almost everything we know—were once created inside stars.

But scientists don’t yet fully understand the processes various stars use to forge the elements we see all around us. CASPAR helps researchers decipher this complex recipe.

CASPAR was among the first laboratory-based experiments to launch at SURF after the facility opened. It was commissioned around 2015, and operated until the effort to excavate the massive caverns for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) ramped up in about 2021. DUNE is next door to CASPAR, and the experiment went on hiatus while underground blasting was underway. 

Now that the DUNE excavation is complete, CASPAR is restarting. The experiment saw a major milestone this summer when the team reignited the plasma inside the heart of the accelerator (the plasma’s reddish-purple color corresponds with the nitrogen gas used).

See this video to learn more about the critical role plasma plays in the accelerator’s function.

Researchers at CASPAR say now that first plasma has been achieved, they expect the first particle beam from the accelerator in late summer or early fall.

As CASPAR ramps back up, it will continue to decipher the stellar recipe that made almost everything we know. In the process, the experiment will parallel and inform other efforts to determine our origins in the universe, including the incredible work of the James Webb Space Telescope. Read more about this here. 

Follow SURF’s Deep Thoughts newsletter for future updates on CASPAR as this exciting experiment comes back online. 

Attachments

• CASPAR first plasma
• CASPAR Researchers

Mike Ray
Sanford Underground Research Facility 
605.571.2314 
[email protected]

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