First observation of new type of interaction between neutrinos and matter

COHERENT international collaboration, which includes the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI and the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of the NRC "Kurchatov Institute", which represent the Russian Federation in the collaboration, has published an article about the discovery of a new type of interaction of neutrinos with matter – coherent elastic scattering on the atomic nucleus in the journal SCIENCE.

This interaction was predicted under the Standard model 43 years ago, but still was not experimentally observed due to the extreme technical complexity of registration of low-energy recoil nuclei in large targets.

According to the Head of the Laboratory of Experimental nuclear physics of MEPhI Professor A.I. Bolozdynya, the effect is a sensitive accuracy test of modern theoretical models of weak interactions and plays an important role in the process of the explosion of supernovae and evolution of the Universe. "Due to the large cross section (probability) of this type of interaction there is a unique perspective to create compact neutrino detectors for monitoring of nuclear reactors in their neutrino radiation with the aim of improving the safety of nuclear power and providing support for international nuclear non-proliferation programs."

The prototype of such neutrino detector, called the RED-100 (Russian Emission Detector), was created by the Russian participants of the COHERENT collaboration in MEPhI in the 2011-2016 years and is under preparation for the test at the Kalinin nuclear power plant.

Provided by National Research Nuclear University