China, US rivalry in neutrino research

The rivalry between China and the United States at the political, economic and diplomatic levels is more or less an open story. What seems less noticed, mostly hidden, is the rivalry in scientific research between the two countries.

It might appear that China does not have much clout in frontier science research, and it is even the case that China is dependent on the US for state-of-the-art technology as in semiconductor industry and the chips needed to make progress on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) front.

It seems to be the case that China is at the forefront of basic science research. China will launch in late 2025 a spherical dome, 700 m (2,300 ft), in size with thousands of light-detecting tubes and sealed in a 12-storey cylindrical pool of water which will carry out an experiment on the elusive sub-atomic particles called neutrinos. The project is called Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO).

Though located in China, the project has many international collaborators from the United States, France, Germany and Italy. The United States had pulled out of the project. But China is going ahead with it.

The United States is building its own neutrino observatory, and it will be six years behind the Chinese one. It is called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). This comes under the supervision of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fermilab. But it will take six years to construct. It will become active in 2030.

The Chinese are saying that Americans are welcome, but it seems that Americans do not want to share frontier science research with rivals China. There is little doubt that the US, despite the continuing trade relations worth billions of dollars, and despite the fact that China is the second largest economy after the United States, is distrustful of China.

And also the Americans hope to retain their superior position in scientific research which is what gives them the edge in technology and in the economy. Wang Yifang, chief scientist and project manager of JUNO, told news agency Reuters: “Around 2018-19, the US DOE asked all national laboratories not to cooperate with China.”

The data on neutrinos will be collected from various sources, especially from the nuclear reactors where the nuclear fission or the breaking up of the atom throws out many sub-atomic particles, including the neutrinos. It is the case that trillions of neutrinos are passing through matter, including the human body. And in its passages neutrino changes into three varieties, and a study of their transformation gives an insight into the sub-atomic processes. It will also lead to understand the activity in the very early universe after the Big Bang.

Apart from the nuclear reactors, neutrinos can be studied in the solar processes and in the radium decay in uranium. China says that it will share data generated at JUNO with France, Germany, Russia, and “data integrity” will be maintained. It would appear that even as China wants to be an equal partner in fundamental research, it does not want it to be an exclusive nationalist project. Understanding the neutrino will deepen the understanding of the universe at the sub-atomic level, and it is an understanding that enhances the knowledge of the whole of humanity. It might have its technological aspect too, but that comes much later.

It raises the question whether knowledge gained through research belongs to the whole of humanity cutting across countries and cultures, or does it become the property of the country whose scientists make the discovery. International cooperation in scientific research is also a necessity because no one group of scientists can hope to unlock the secrets of the universe.