A tiny neutrino detector has found its footing in a fresh setting — at a nuclear reactor.
Conventional detectors of the subatomic particles require metric tons of material. But the new detector has a mass of less than 3 kilograms. Think chihuahua. And it successfully detected antineutrinos, the antimatter counterparts of neutrinos, streaming from a nuclear power plant in Leibstadt, Switzerland, researchers report in a paper submitted January 9 to arXiv.org.
“This is actually huge,” says neutrino physicist Kate Scholberg of Duke University, who was not involved with the research. “People have been trying to do this for many decades and now have finally succeeded.”
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