World’s Largest Neutrino Detector Switches On
coolgopher writes:
Science Daily published a report on the newest neutrino detector now operating in China:
"Deep beneath southern China, JUNO has launched one of the most ambitious neutrino experiments in history. With its massive 20,000-ton liquid scintillator detector now operational, it's poised to answer one of particle physics' greatest mysteries: the true ordering of neutrino masses. Built over more than a decade and involving hundreds of scientists worldwide, JUNO not only promises to resolve questions about the building blocks of matter but also to open entirely new frontiers-from exploring signals of supernovae to hunting for evidence of exotic physics."
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) has successfully completed filling its 20,000-tons liquid scintillator detector and begun data taking on Aug. 26.
After more than a decade of preparation and construction, JUNO is the first of a new generation of very large neutrino experiments to reach this stage. Initial trial operation and data taking show that key performance indicators met or exceeded design expectations, enabling JUNO to tackle one of this decade's major open questions in particle physics: the ordering of neutrino masses -- whether the third mass state () is heavier than the second (2).
Located 700 meters underground near Jiangmen city in the Guangdong Province, JUNO detects antineutrinos produced 53 kilometers away by the Taishan and Yangjiang nuclear power plants and measures their energy spectrum with record precision. Unlike other approaches, JUNO's determination of the mass ordering is independent of matter effects in the Earth and largely free of parameter degeneracies. JUNO will also deliver order-of-magnitude improvements in the precision of several neutrino-oscillation parameters and enable cutting-edge studies of neutrinos from the Sun, supernovae, the atmosphere, and the Earth. It will also open new windows to explore unknown physics, including searches for sterile neutrinos and proton decay.
JUNO is designed for a scientific lifetime of up to 30 years, with a credible upgrade path toward a world-leading search for neutrinoless double-beta decay. Such an upgrade would probe the absolute neutrino mass scale and test whether neutrinos are Majorana particles, addressing fundamental questions spanning particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, and profoundly shaping our understanding of the universe.
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