JUNO Opens a New Era of Precision Neutrino Physics

by Alberto Garfagnini (Università di Padova)

Thursday 9 Jul 2026, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Rome

1/1-1 - Aula "A. Rostagni" (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Edificio Marzolo)

 

The seminar will be held in English

Just two months after its completion, the next-generation neutrino detector JUNO (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory) in southeastern China has already achieved extraordinary precision, determining some fundamental solar neutrino oscillation parameters with unprecedented accuracy.
On the occasion of the publication in Nature of the article presenting the results from the first two months of operation, the journal dedicated the cover of its June 11, 2026 issue to JUNO.
To share this important result with the department, Alberto Garfagnini is organizing a seminar to be held on July 9 at 11 a.m. in Aula Rostagni.

Abstract

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), located in southern China, has started data taking at the end of August 2025. Designed to study electron antineutrinos produced by nearby nuclear power plants, JUNO is built around a 20,000-ton liquid scintillator detector viewed by about
20,000 photomultiplier tubes. Installed 700 meters underground and shielded by an ultrapure water pool, the detector achieves an exceptional radiopurity and background suppression required for precision neutrino measurements. Only two months after the start of data taking, JUNO measured two of the key neutrino oscillation parameters with unprecedented precision. The results have been recently published in Nature and featured on the journal's cover, highlighting their scientific significance. Very recently, the collaboration released new results based on 207 days of data taking, confirming percent-level precision on the two main oscillation parameters. For the first time, JUNO also measured the third mass-squared difference, $\Delta m_{31}^{2}$, with approximately 1% precision. This measurement provides information on the neutrino mass ordering and currently favors the normal ordering with a significance of 2.3$\sigma$.

These results will be presented in the seminar and future prospects of JUNO physics highlighted.