Big future for small particle

China is rapidly claiming a place among global leaders in the field of neutrino research, as Cheng Yingqi reports.

For physicists, 2015 has been the year of the neutrino. The minuscule subatomic particle, which is crucial to our understanding of the origins of the universe, is being studied at laboratories across the world, but especially in China.

Earlier this year, the government launched a new neutrino experimental facility project in Jiangmen city, Guangdong province, to replace the existing Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment by 2020, with the aim of ranking the masses of the three different types of neutrinos. Although the particle itself is neutral, it is part of a "trinity" consisting of three types of neutrino - the electron, muon and tau neutrinos. Under certain circumstances, each type can transform itself into one of the other two.