Topic
Detection
How neutrinos are detected — Cherenkov radiation, coherent elastic nucleus scattering (CEvNS), liquid scintillators, and tritium beta endpoint spectroscopy.
Cross-section landscape
The probability that a neutrino interacts in a given detector is set by the cross-section of the relevant process. Below, three key channels are compared across the energy range from reactor to accelerator scales — CEvNS on a heavy nucleus, inverse beta decay on a free proton, and elastic scattering on atomic electrons.
CEvNS dominates at low energies by roughly two orders of magnitude over inverse beta decay — but produces only keV-scale nuclear recoils, which is why it took 43 years from Freedman's 1974 prediction to detection.
Concept pages
Four detection channels.
- detection
Cherenkov detection
Water and ice Cherenkov detectors from Kamiokande to IceCube.
- detection
CEvNS
Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, predicted 1974, observed 2017.
- detection
Liquid scintillator
Inverse beta decay detection, from Cowan-Reines to KamLAND and JUNO.
- detection
Tritium beta endpoint
Direct neutrino mass measurements from KATRIN and beyond.