The US-China neutrino hunt that opened a path to discovery

An international experiment in southern China yielded invaluable information about a slippery subatomic particle, researchers say

After nine years, the data collection is over but the analysis goes on

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Some of the equipment from the Daya Bay site will be moved to Jiangmen where a new detector is being built. Photo: IHEP

Published: 7:00pm, 15 Dec 2020Updated: 10:22pm, 15 Dec 2020

Scientists will comb through nearly a decade’s worth of data from an award-winning international research project in southern China to analyse an elusive subatomic particle that could be the key to understanding the origins of the universe.

The data came from the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in Shenzhen, a collaboration between China and the United States that went on to win the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2016.

The project ran for nine years and the facilities were closed down on Saturday after researchers completed data collection.

“We are so pleased to see the success of the experiment, which has made important scientific discoveries,” Wang Yifang, the former spokesman of the collaboration, said.

“The collaboration is truly international, and lessons we learned here are invaluable. We look forward to other collaborations in the future,” said Wang, now director of the Beijing-based Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP).

While the detectors used in the experiment have shut down, researchers will continue to analyse the data to improve measurements of neutrino properties, including a new precision of one property that is “unlikely to be surpassed for decades to come”, according to the team.

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