{"id":904678,"date":"2026-09-25T06:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/904678\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T06:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:54:12","slug":"scattering-neutrinos-to-probe-the-fundamental-laws-of-the-universe-mit-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/904678\/","title":{"rendered":"Scattering neutrinos to probe the fundamental laws of the universe | MIT News"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an experimental particle physicist and sixth-year PhD student in the\u00a0Formaggio Group<\/a> in the\u00a0Laboratory for Nuclear Science<\/a>, Reyes studies neutrinos, elementary particles that have vanishingly little mass and rarely interact with other matter. Neutrinos are produced during radioactive decay, including the processes taking place inside nuclear reactors. Because they interact so infrequently, detecting them can be difficult. (We can\u2019t feel them, but neutrinos from the sun are streaming through our bodies every minute.) Their unusual behavior makes them valuable to physicists seeking to understand what lies beyond the Standard Model, the framework that describes many of the fundamental particles and forces in nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Standard Model is extremely accurate and describes most of everything that we see,\u201d Reyes says. \u201cBut it\u2019s not complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reyes is a member of the Ricochet neutrino experiment, an international collaboration studying neutrinos produced by a nuclear reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. The experiment seeks to observe coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, a low-energy interaction in which a neutrino scatters off an atomic nucleus.<\/p>\n

Through Ricochet, scientists aim to investigate some properties of these elusive particles, and contribute to, as Reyes puts it, \u201cjust fundamentally understanding the world in which we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

When looking back at her time in graduate school, Reyes\u2019 path has not always followed the plan she initially envisioned.<\/p>\n

When she joined Ricochet, she expected to work on a particular project located at MIT. But a few years into her PhD, it was clear that the project would not be ready within her timeline. Reyes instead shifted her focus to work taking place in France, where she began learning the technical details of the experiment\u2019s detectors.<\/p>\n

Her first visit lasted three months. At the time, Ricochet had two detectors, and Reyes spent much of her time performing the routine work required to understand how they operated.<\/p>\n

As the experiment expanded to nine detectors and eventually 18, the amount of work required to manage the system grew substantially. Reyes and a colleague recognized that many of the repetitive tasks could be automated.<\/p>\n

Together, they developed a software framework that could perform much of the low-level analysis and detector monitoring that Reyes had initially carried out manually.<\/p>\n

The project became an important part of her development as a physicist. By working closely with the detectors and helping build tools to manage them, Reyes gained a detailed understanding of the experiment\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like you\u2019re building your own stuff to replace yourself,\u201d she says. \u201cWhich is nice in a way because you can save yourself a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opportunity was both validating and humbling. As a graduate student, she had moved from learning the basics of the experiment to helping guide the work of other scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like my collaborators trusted me, and I had something of value to give to the collaboration,\u201d Reyes says.<\/p>\n

The people she has met through MIT and the Ricochet collaboration have been among the most rewarding parts of her graduate experience. Students, mentors, and collaborators have helped her think critically and become a better physicist, she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As an experimental particle physicist and sixth-year PhD student in the\u00a0Formaggio Group in the\u00a0Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Reyes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[64,63,472864,472865,142467,34730,1984,292,472866,128],"class_list":["post-904678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-faith-reyes","tag-formaggio-group","tag-laboratory-for-nuclear-science","tag-neutrinos","tag-particle-physics","tag-physics","tag-ricochet-experiment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}