(Press-News.org) UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 15:00 GMT / 10:00 ET WEDNESDAY 10 DECEMBER 2025
New breakthrough in detecting ‘ghost particles’ from the Sun
First observation of carbon-neutrino interactions opens new frontiers in nuclear and particle physics.
More images available via the link in the Notes Section.
Neutrinos are one of the most mysterious particles in the universe, often called 'ghost particles' because they rarely interact with anything else. Trillions stream through our bodies every second, yet leave no trace. They are produced during nuclear reactions, including those that take place in the core of our Sun. Their tendency to not interact often makes detecting neutrinos notoriously difficult. Neutrinos from the Sun have only been seen to interact on a handful of different targets. Now, for the first time, scientists have succeeded in also observing them transform carbon atoms into nitrogen inside a vast underground detector.
The breakthrough, led by researchers at Oxford, was made using the SNO+ detector located two kilometres underground in SNOLAB, an international world-class facility housed in a working mine in Sudbury, Canada. The deep location was crucial to shield the lab from cosmic rays and background radiation that would mask the faint neutrino signals.
The team searched for events where a carbon-13 nuclei is struck by a high-energy neutrino and transformed into radioactive nitrogen-13, which decays about ten minutes later. They used a ‘delayed coincidence’ method, which looks for two linked signals: an initial flash from a neutrino striking a carbon-13 nucleus, followed several minutes later by a second flash from the resulting radioactive decay. This distinctive pattern allows researchers to confidently separate real neutrino interactions from background noise.
The analysis found 5.6 observed events over a 231-day period, from 4 May 2022 to 29 June 2023. This is statistically consistent with the 4.7 expected to be generated by neutrinos during this time.
Neutrinos are bizarre particles that are essential for understanding stellar processes, nuclear fusion, and the evolution of the universe. According to the researchers, this discovery lays the groundwork for future studies of similar low-energy neutrino interactions
Lead author Gulliver Milton, a PhD student at the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics, said: “Capturing this interaction is an extraordinary achievement. Despite the rarity of the carbon isotope, we were able to observe its interaction with neutrinos, which were born in the Sun’s core and travelled vast distances to reach our detector.”
Co-author Professor Steven Biller (Department of Physics, University of Oxford) added: “Solar neutrinos themselves have been an intriguing subject of study for many years, and the measurements of these by our predecessor experiment, SNO, led to the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics. It is remarkable that our understanding of neutrinos from the Sun has advanced so much that we can now use them for the first time as a ‘test beam’ to study other kinds of rare atomic reactions!”
SNO+ repurposes the SNO experiment, which showed that neutrinos oscillate between three types: electron, muon, and tau neutrinos on their journey from the Sun to the Earth. SNO’s lead investigator, Arthur B. McDonald, shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for solving the solar neutrino problem, opening the door for new research into neutrino properties and their role in the universe, says SNOLAB staff scientist Dr Christine Kraus.
“This discovery uses the natural abundance of carbon-13 within the experiment's liquid scintillator to measure a specific, rare interaction,” Kraus said. “To our knowledge, these results represent the lowest energy observation of neutrino interactions on carbon-13 nuclei to date and provides the first direct cross-section measurement for this specific nuclear reaction to the ground state of the resulting nitrogen-13 nucleus.”
Notes to editors:
For media enquiries or interview requests, contact Gulliver Milton: gulliver.milton@jesus.ox.ac.uk
The paper ‘First Evidence of Solar Neutrino Interactions on 13C’ will be published in Physical Review Letters at 15:00 GMT / 10:00 ET Wednesday 10 December 2025, DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/1frl-95gj . To view a copy of the study before this under embargo, contact Gulliver Milton: gulliver.milton@jesus.ox.ac.uk
Further images of SNOLAB approved for media can be found here: https://www.snolab.ca/about/for-the-media/
About the University of Oxford
Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the tenth year running, and number 3 in the QS World Rankings 2024. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.
Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.
Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 300 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past five years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing around £16.9 billion to the UK economy in 2021/22, and supports more than 90,400 full time jobs.
About SNOLAB
SNOLAB, the deepest-cleanest underground research facility in the world, has made Canada a leader in underground science, infrastructure, and expertise. Located two kilometres down, our facility at Vale’s Creighton Mine in Greater Sudbury uses the Canadian Shield to protect experiments from the cosmic rays that constantly bombard the Earth’s surface.
By hosting and enabling the world’s most advanced and sensitive underground experiments, SNOLAB bolsters Canada’s scientific reputation, attracts new talent to our country and Northern Ontario, trains more highly skilled people, provides more opportunities for Canadian researchers to lead international projects, and generates economic benefits for Ontarians and Canadians.
For More Information:
Michael Whitehouse
Senior Communications Officer | SNOLAB
Michaal.Whitehouse@SNOLAB.ca
(705) 690-5270
@SNOLABscience | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
END
New breakthrough in detecting ‘ghost particles’ from the Sun
2025-12-10
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