NOvA Neutrino Experiment far detector at Ash River, Minnesota

Sussex physicists are part of an international collaboration that has made a breakthrough in observing how neutrinos – tiny ‘ghost-like’ particles that pass through the Earth almost without detection – appear to change, or oscillate, from one type into another across space and time.

Dr Lily Asquith and her colleagues in the Sussex Neutrino Group are analysing data from the NOvA experiment in the US, where neutrinos are beamed 810 kilometres underground to a detector. Their results have been combined with Japan’s T2K experiment and published in the journal Nature. 

Dr Asquith says: “It has been really exciting to see how these two major collaborations are helping to shed light on one of the great mysteries of existence, which is why there appears to be more matter than anti-matter in the Universe.

“The Sussex group has world-recognised expertise and leadership in neutrino research. Our work with NOvA continues with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which will give us even more information about these elusive particles.”