Neutrinos are the most common particle in the cosmos. Now, a team led by physicists at the University of California, Irvine, has for the first time discovered neutrinos from an entirely new source: particle accelerators.
It is the latest result of the Forward Search Experiment or FASER. FASER detects particles produced by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
The research could also provide a glimpse into the farthest reaches of the universe by shedding light on cosmic neutrinos that travel great distances and collide with Earth.
FASER Co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd, a particle physicist at CERN, said: “They can tell us about deep space in ways we can’t otherwise learn. These very high energy neutrinos in the LHC are important for understanding some really exciting observations in particle astrophysics.”
“FASER itself is new and unique among particle detection experiments. Unlike other detectors at CERN, such as ATLAS, which is several stories high and weighs thousands of tons, FASER is about a ton and fits neatly into a small side tunnel at CERN.”
UCI experimental physicist Dave Casper said: “Neutrinos are the only known particles that the much larger experiments at the Large Hadron Collider cannot directly detect, so the successful observation from FASER means the collider’s full physical potential is finally being exploited.”
