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How heavy is a neutrino? Race to weigh mysterious particle heats up

Physicists discuss experiments that could improve laboratory measurements of the super-light particle’s mass.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
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Scaffolding to mount inner electrode system in the main spectrometer of KATRIN.

The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) detector uses the radioactive decay of tritium to measure the neutrino’s mass. Credit: KIT/KATRIN Collaboration

Physicists want to ramp up their efforts to weigh neutrinos, which are perhaps the most mysterious of all elementary particles.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00620-9

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 04 March 2024: An earlier version of this article indicated that tritium has three neutrons in its nucleus. It has two. This has now been amended.

References

  1. Esfahani, A. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 102502 (2023).

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