Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment

The 1956 experiment that detected reactor electron antineutrinos through inverse beta decay, providing the first experimental confirmation of neutrinos.

Inverse beta decay: A reaction in which an electron antineutrino and a proton produce a neutron and a positron. This was the interaction that converted reactor antineutrinos into detectable particles.
Neutrino: A neutral, weakly interacting elementary particle with a very small mass. The experiment tested whether the particle proposed to explain beta decay could be observed.
Electron antineutrino: The antiparticle of the electron neutrino, carrying no electric charge and interacting through the weak force. The reactor emitted this specific neutrino flavor and antimatter counterpart.
Nobel Prize in Physics 1995: The 1995 physics Nobel Prize awarded to Frederick Reines for detecting the neutrino. The award recognized the experimental achievement begun by this reactor experiment.
Delayed coincidence: A detection method that identifies events through two signals separated by a characteristic delay. A positron signal followed by neutron capture supplied the experiment’s distinctive signature.
Wolfgang Pauli: An Austrian-born physicist who formulated the neutrino hypothesis in 1930 to account for missing energy in beta decay. His proposal gave the experiment the particle it set out to detect.
Beta decay: A radioactive process in which a nucleus changes its proton or neutron count by emitting a beta particle. The neutrino hypothesis arose to account for energy and momentum in this decay.
Neutrino astronomy: The study of astronomical sources using neutrinos detected on or near Earth. The experiment demonstrated that weakly interacting neutrinos could be detected and studied.
Positron: The electron’s positively charged antiparticle, with the same mass as an electron. Each inverse beta decay produced a positron whose annihilation generated the prompt signal.
Enrico Fermi: An Italian-American physicist who developed a theory of beta decay and named the neutrino in 1933. Fermi’s theory supplied the interaction framework for estimating the detection rate.

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Muon neutrinoCompared with: It established neutrino detection before experiments identified the muon neutrino.