Los Alamos and the long path to detecting neutrinos
41 points by LAsteNERD
by LAsteNERD
0 subcomment
Neutrinos were originally proposed as a “desperate remedy” to fix missing energy in nuclear decay, but turned out to be real—just incredibly hard to detect. Tens of quadrillions can pass through matter before one interacts. Los Alamos physicists (Reines and Cowan) confirmed their existence in 1956 using a nuclear reactor as a source. Since then, neutrino experiments have repeatedly exposed gaps in the Standard Model—like neutrino oscillations, which proved they have mass, and ongoing hints at possible “sterile” neutrinos. What’s interesting is how detection capability drove the science: better detectors led to unexpected anomalies which led to new physics. Today, neutrinos are used as probes of everything from stellar processes to matter–antimatter asymmetry, and experiments are still chasing open questions like whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles.
> A follow-on experiment, called MicroBooNE, was built specifically to look for sterile neutrinos, and in late 2025, it reported no evidence of the expected signatures. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Yes, but exclusion regions are.
by peterldowns
1 subcomments
Neutrino research is so cool. SNO+ is entering a new phase this year, with a new scintillator fluid that might allow us to determine their Majorana status. Always cool to realize how much is still unknown, and how tenuously we “know” anything.
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