Experiments

Comparison

Sortable summary of all milestone experiments. Click a column header to sort; filter by typing.

Filter rows 15 rows

Experiment	Location	Start	End	Status	Objective
Cowan-Reines	Savannah River Plant, South Carolina, USA	1953	1959	retired	First direct detection of the free antineutrino via inverse beta decay on protons.
Homestake	Homestake Gold Mine, Lead, South Dakota, USA	1968	1994	retired	Measure the flux of solar electron neutrinos above 0.814 MeV through radiochemical detection of the reaction νe + ³⁷Cl → ³⁷Ar + e⁻.
Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven	Morton Salt Mine, Fairport Harbor, Ohio, USA	1982	1991	retired	Search for proton decay in 8 kilotons of water instrumented with a Cherenkov photomultiplier array.
Kamiokande	Mozumi mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan	1983	1996	retired	Search for proton decay in 3 kt of water with a Cherenkov imaging array. Subsequently extended to real-time solar-neutrino detection and supernova monitoring.
Super-K	Mozumi mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan	1996	present	active	Observe atmospheric, solar, and accelerator neutrinos in a 50-kiloton water-Cherenkov detector with sufficient statistics to study oscillation patterns.
SNO	Creighton Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada	1999	2006	retired	Resolve the solar neutrino problem by independently measuring the total flavor-summed flux and the electron-neutrino fraction of solar ⁸B neutrinos.
KamLAND	Kamioka mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan	2002	present	active	Detect electron antineutrinos from Japanese nuclear reactors at an average baseline of 180 km, probing the solar-sector oscillation parameters with a terrestrial source.
Borexino	Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy	2007	2021	retired	Real-time spectroscopy of sub-MeV solar neutrinos through elastic scattering on electrons in 300 tons of ultra-pure liquid scintillator.
IceCube	Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica, Antarctica (US-led)	2010	present	active	Detect high-energy astrophysical and atmospheric neutrinos, and use the Earth as an analyzing medium for oscillation and exotic-physics studies.
T2K	J-PARC to Super-Kamiokande, 295 km across Japan, Japan	2010	present	active	Measure νμ → νe appearance and νμ disappearance at a 295 km baseline to extract θ₁₃, Δm²₃₁, θ₂₃, and the CP-violating phase δ_CP.
Daya Bay	Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants, Guangdong, China	2011	2020	retired	Measure the neutrino mixing angle θ₁₃ through short-baseline reactor antineutrino disappearance, using functionally identical near and far detectors to cancel flux and detection systematics.
NOvA	Fermilab to Ash River, Minnesota — 810 km, USA	2014	present	active	Measure νμ → νe appearance and νμ disappearance at 810 km from the Fermilab NuMI beam to extract θ₂₃, Δm²₃₁, the mass ordering, and δ_CP.
COHERENT	Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge, USA	2015	present	active	First observation and precision characterization of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), 43 years after its prediction.
KATRIN	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany	2019	present	active	Model-independent direct measurement of the electron-antineutrino effective mass from the shape of the tritium beta spectrum near its 18.6 keV endpoint.
JUNO	Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, China	2024	present	active	Determine the neutrino mass ordering using precision spectroscopy of reactor antineutrinos at a 53-km baseline, and provide the most precise measurement of Δm²₂₁ and θ₁₂.

Source: Compiled from the peer-reviewed neutrino-physics literature.

Portraits

Each experiment has a dedicated page with detailed method, key results, and significance.

• Savannah River Plant, South Carolina, USA · 1953–1959

  Cowan-Reines Neutrino Experiment

  First direct detection of the free antineutrino via inverse beta decay on protons.

• Homestake Gold Mine, Lead, South Dakota, USA · 1968–1994

  Homestake Chlorine Experiment

  Measure the flux of solar electron neutrinos above 0.814 MeV through radiochemical detection of the reaction νe + ³⁷Cl → ³⁷Ar + e⁻.

• Morton Salt Mine, Fairport Harbor, Ohio, USA · 1982–1991

  IMB

  Search for proton decay in 8 kilotons of water instrumented with a Cherenkov photomultiplier array.

• Mozumi mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan · 1983–1996

  Kamiokande

  Search for proton decay in 3 kt of water with a Cherenkov imaging array. Subsequently extended to real-time solar-neutrino detection and supernova monitoring.

• Mozumi mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan · 1996 – present

  Super-Kamiokande

  Observe atmospheric, solar, and accelerator neutrinos in a 50-kiloton water-Cherenkov detector with sufficient statistics to study oscillation patterns.

• Creighton Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada · 1999–2006

  Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

  Resolve the solar neutrino problem by independently measuring the total flavor-summed flux and the electron-neutrino fraction of solar ⁸B neutrinos.

• Kamioka mine, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan · 2002 – present

  KamLAND

  Detect electron antineutrinos from Japanese nuclear reactors at an average baseline of 180 km, probing the solar-sector oscillation parameters with a terrestrial source.

• Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy · 2007–2021

  Borexino

  Real-time spectroscopy of sub-MeV solar neutrinos through elastic scattering on electrons in 300 tons of ultra-pure liquid scintillator.

• Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica, Antarctica (US-led) · 2010 – present

  IceCube Neutrino Observatory

  Detect high-energy astrophysical and atmospheric neutrinos, and use the Earth as an analyzing medium for oscillation and exotic-physics studies.

• J-PARC to Super-Kamiokande, 295 km across Japan, Japan · 2010 – present

  T2K

  Measure νμ → νe appearance and νμ disappearance at a 295 km baseline to extract θ₁₃, Δm²₃₁, θ₂₃, and the CP-violating phase δ_CP.

• Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants, Guangdong, China · 2011–2020

  Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment

  Measure the neutrino mixing angle θ₁₃ through short-baseline reactor antineutrino disappearance, using functionally identical near and far detectors to cancel flux and detection systematics.

• Fermilab to Ash River, Minnesota — 810 km, USA · 2014 – present

  NOvA

  Measure νμ → νe appearance and νμ disappearance at 810 km from the Fermilab NuMI beam to extract θ₂₃, Δm²₃₁, the mass ordering, and δ_CP.

• Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge, USA · 2015 – present

  COHERENT

  First observation and precision characterization of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), 43 years after its prediction.

• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany · 2019 – present

  KATRIN

  Model-independent direct measurement of the electron-antineutrino effective mass from the shape of the tritium beta spectrum near its 18.6 keV endpoint.

• Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, China · 2024 – present

  Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory

  Determine the neutrino mass ordering using precision spectroscopy of reactor antineutrinos at a 53-km baseline, and provide the most precise measurement of Δm²₂₁ and θ₁₂.

Machine-readable: /research/experiments.json