DAEJEON < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) A group of international scientists, for the first time ever, observed neutrinos scattering off a nuclei, a local research institute said Friday, a groundbreaking result that may one day solve the mystery behind dark matter.

In 1974, a theory on the phenomenon called Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) was first proposed. There have since been many trials in the past four decades attempting to measure CEvNS but, until now, no successful observation.

Under the name of "COHERENT collaboration," a total of 80 scientists from 19 institutions in four countries -- the United States, Russia, Canada and South Korea -- successfully measured CEvNS, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) said.

A neutrino refers to a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, although it has no electrical charge and is of very small mass. Neutrinos are one of the most abundant particles in the universe.

The experiment was conducted in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, using a novel detector called the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the most advanced neutrino detector to date.

"SNS provides an intense flux of neutrinos in the few tens-of-MeV range, with a sharply pulsed timing structure that is beneficial for background rejection," the researchers aid in a paper.

The IBS said this experiment is meaningful, as neutrinos are so hard to detect because they interact with other particles very rarely. Also, neutrinos are considered a "key" in understanding the universe.

"The experiment represents a kind of back door for direct dark matter detection. We aim to deploy multiple detector technologies in a step-by-step approach," the researchers said.

"This is the result of an experiment that has only been suggested at the theoretical level," said Yoo Jong-hee, an IBS researcher who participated in the experiment, adding that the discovery will one day lead to solving the mystery of supernova explosions and eventually solve the mystery of the origin of the universe.

Their findings were published in the latest edition of the journal "Nature."

khj@yna.co.kr

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