The FASER (Forward Search Experiment) collaboration, which searches for light and extremely weak interacting particles, has announced the discovery of neutrinos (subatomic particles) produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. FASER is supported in part by the Heising-Simons Foundation’s Science program, through a grant to the University of California Irvine.

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe: they helped shape the early cosmos, play a role in the nuclear processes powering stars, and are central players in the Standard Model of particle physics, which explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact in the subatomic world. Neutrinos are also key to learning more about enduring mysteries, such as how particles acquire mass, and why matter dominates antimatter in the universe.

With this new discovery, FASER has detected neutrinos at TeV-scale energies, the highest energies ever to be observed for a human-made source, and similar to the high-energy neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. This discovery opens a new window for studying neutrino properties, astrophysical neutrinos, and tests of the Standard Model in the neutrino sector.

The FASER project will continue collecting data through the end of 2025. Learn more about the collider neutrino discovery by reading University of California Irvine’s announcement here.