Neutrinos are among the most elusive particles in the universe and understanding them may be the key to solving some of the biggest cosmic mysteries. For decades, scientists have been building massive detectors and using intense neutrino sources to capture these ghostly particles. 

The Short-Baseline Near Detector is the newest liquid-argon neutrino detector at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The SBND collaboration published their first results on Oct. 30 in arXiv and submitted to Physical Review Letters for review and publication, marking a critical demonstration of the powerful tool scientists now have at their disposal.

This result focuses on understanding how neutrinos interact with argon atoms and lays critical groundwork needed to prepare for the Fermilab-hosted Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility.

“This is a huge milestone for the collaboration,” said Afroditi Papadopoulou, a physicist at Georgia Institute of Technology and member of the SBND collaboration. “This result is going to be a stepping stone for all the analyses that will follow from this point on.”