“’Welcome to my secret underground lair,’ he [Professor Mark Vagins] tells me as we get to his lab.”  A new essay with spectacular photos shows the inside of the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan.  The article highlights the joint work of Prof. Beacom and Prof. Vagins, who proposed in 2003 that Super-Kamiokande should be upgraded by dissolving a gadolinium compound into its ultra-pure water.  This upgrade is now under construction.  With it, Super-Kamiokande will gain much greater sensitivity to detecting neutrons, which is expected to help them isolate the faint signal of neutrinos from all past core-collapse supernovae throughout the universe.  Neutrons are more often produced in the signal reactions than in noise reactions.   

Get a tour of the Super Kamiokande detector and learn more about the experiment at 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-17/inside-super-kamiokande-360-tour/11209104

Pictured is Super Kamiokande's photosensor which detect neutrinos as flashes of light. (Credit Asahi Shimbun/Getty)