Back in 2018, a tank of the purest water, buried under kilometers of rock in Ontario, Canada, flashed as barely detectable particle slammed through its molecules.
It was the first time that water has been used to detect a particle known as an antineutrino, which originated from a nuclear reactor more than 240 kilometers away. This incredible breakthrough promisesAs some of the most abundant particles in the Universe,are odd little things with a lot of potential for revealing deeper insights into the Universe. Unfortunately they are almost massless, carry no charge, and barely interact with other particles at all.
Large, liquid filled tanks lined with photomultiplier tubes are used to detect this particular kind of decay. They're designed to capture the faint glow ofcreated by charged particles moving faster than light can travel through the liquid, similar to the sonic boom generated by breaking the sound barrier. So they're very sensitive to very faint light.
Combing through the 190 days' worth of data collected during that calibration phase back in 2018, the SNO+ collaboration found evidence of inverse beta decay. The neutron produced during this process is captured by a hydrogen nucleus in the water, which in turn produces a soft bloom of light at a very specific energy level, 2.2 megaelectronvolts.
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