UC Santa Barbara assistant professor Xiao Luo(link is external) has big love for the tiny neutrino(link is external), a common, yet very elusive and still-mysterious subatomic particle.

Neutrinos(link is external) are the most abundant particle with mass in our universe — though they rarely interact with other matter. Their elusive nature makes them very challenging to detect. Neutrinos are also shapeshifters, oscillating as they travel between three flavors (electron, muon, and tau) predicted by the Standard Model(link is external) of particle physics. Studying these oscillations can provide answers to fundamental questions in physics, such as understanding why our universe has more matter than antimatter. “It’s rewarding to be a neutrino experimentalist because they offer many opportunities to learn about our universe, and it’s likely that whatever we find by studying them will lead to new discoveries,” Luo said.