Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles that make up the Universe. Compared to other types of particles, they have very little mass, no charge, and only interact with others via the weak nuclear force and gravity. As such, finding evidence of heir interactions is extremely difficult, requiring massive instruments located deep underground to shield them from any interference.
However, using the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), a research facility located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) – a international team of researchers recently made an historic discovery about neutrinos using an entirely different method. As part of the COHERENT experiment, these results confirm a prediction made 43 years ago and offers new possibilities for neutrino research.
The study that details their findings, titled “Observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering“, was recently published in the journal Science. The research was conducted as part of the COHERENT experiment, a collaboration of 80 researchers from 19 institutions from more 4 nations that has been searching for what is known as Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) for over a year.
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