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Korean experiment confirms groundbreaking neutrino measurement

The inside of the RENO detector. Image: RENO collaboration

Hot on the heels of the Daya Bay experiment's completion of one of the most difficult measurements in neutrino physics, a Korean experiment has produced its own measurement confirming the earlier results.

Scientists at the Reactor Experiment for Neutrino Oscillations, or RENO, studied neutrinos emitted from six reactors at the Yonggwang nuclear power plant on the west coast of the Korean peninsula to observe the rarest type of neutrino transformation. This allowed them to measure a variable called theta one-three.

The larger the measure of theta one-three, the more often electron neutrinos and electron antineutrinos oscillate, or change from one type to another. The experiment calculated theta one-three to be about 0.10, similar to the Daya Bay experiment's calculation of 0.09.

"This was the hardest neutrino transformation to measure, but it turns out to be rather large," said Soo-Bong Kim of Seoul National University, spokesperson of the RENO experiment, in a press release. "This surprisingly large value of theta one-three will strongly promote the next round of neutrino experiments to find the reason for asymmetry of matter-antimatter in this universe."

The RENO collaboration submitted their result to the journal Physical Review Letters on Monday.