Scientists from Japan’s T2K and the U.S. NOvA experiments have combined data to study elusive neutrinos, revealing new clues about why matter exists. Their joint breakthrough brings physics closer to uncovering how universe began and why we’re here.
In a groundbreaking international collaboration, scientists from Japan’s T2K experiment and the U.S.-based NOvA project have joined forces to probe one of the universe’s deepest mysteries — why anything exists at all. Their combined research marks one of the most precise investigations yet into the elusive particles known as neutrinos, often called “ghost particles” for their ability to pass through matter almost undetected.
Global Collaboration Unlocks New Precision
For the first time, two of the world’s largest neutrino experiments pooled their data to reach an unprecedented level of precision in studying how these nearly invisible particles behave. The joint analysis, published in Nature, merges eight years of NOvA observations with a decade of T2K results.
“Hundreds of trillions of neutrinos pass through us every second, but they almost never interact,” explained Joseph Walsh, a postdoctoral associate at Michigan State University (MSU). “That makes them incredibly hard to study — yet they might hold the key to why we’re here.”
By tracking how neutrinos change “flavors,” or oscillate, as they travel through space, researchers are investigating whether these particles might violate a fundamental principle of physics known as charge-parity (CP) symmetry — meaning neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts don’t behave the same way. Such a violation could explain why the universe contains matter at all, instead of annihilating into nothing after the Big Bang.
Probing the Origins of Matter
Physicists believe that in the early universe, matter and antimatter existed in equal amounts and should have destroyed each other. The fact that matter survived — and everything from stars to humans exists — suggests a subtle imbalance. Neutrinos may be the missing piece of that cosmic puzzle.
“The results don’t yet solve the mystery,” said Professor Kendall Mahn, co-spokesperson for T2K and a physicist at MSU. “But they show what’s possible when scientists work together across borders and technologies. This was a huge victory for our field.”
Both T2K and NOvA continue collecting data, with future experiments expected to sharpen these insights further. If neutrinos are proven to violate CP symmetry, they may finally reveal why the universe favors matter — and, ultimately, why we exist at all.