February 14, 2025
Society Fellow, Professor Miroslav Filipovic FRSN FAIP of Western Sydney University (WSU), is an author of a recently published paper in Nature announcing the most highly energetic neutrino ever detected.
The paper, from the international Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT) consortium, announced the discovery of the ‘KM3-230213A’ neutrino with an astonishing energy of 120 peta electron volts (PeV), making it one of the most powerful particles ever detected—and the most highly energetic neutrino by a factor of 20. Neutrinos, tiny, chargeless, and nearly massless particles, travel largely unimpeded from the furthest reaches of the universe and so are extremely difficulty to detect.
The detection of ‘KM3-230213A’ was made possible through the advanced capabilities of the KM3NeT telescope which has three detector sites in the Mediterranean Sea. The telescope comprises an array of thousands of optical sensors that detect the faint light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos with water.
Professor Filipovic, the only Australian author of the paper, noted that the KM3NeT telescope, which is still under construction, has ‘only one-tenth of what we can expect in the final [cubic kilometre] array.’ He went on to say that ‘high-energy neutrinos like this are extremely rare, making this a monumental discovery. … Detecting such an extraordinary particle brings us closer to understanding the most powerful forces shaping our universe.’
The Society congratulates Professor Miroslav Filipovic on his contribution to such ground-breaking research and wishes him and his WSU team every success in their work with the KM3NeT consortium..
To read further, please see the Nature paper, an ABC news article, and the media release from WSU.
