Scientists from the NOvA collaboration have announced an exciting new result that could improve our understanding of the behavior of neutrinos.

NOvA was designed to study neutrino oscillations, the phenomenon by which these particles “flip” flavors while in transit. As presented at the International Conference of High-Energy Physics in Chicago (8 August 2016, 2:15 pm), NOvA scientists have seen evidence that one of the three neutrino mass states might not include equal parts of muon and tau flavor, as previously thought. Scientists refer to this as “non-maximal mixing,” and NOvA’s preliminary result is the first hint that this may be the case for the third mass state.

The NOvA experiment hasn’t yet collected enough data to claim a discovery of non-maximal mixing, but if this effect persists scientists expect to have enough data to definitively explore this mystery in the coming years.

To read a public presentation on this result, please visit
http://indico.cern.ch/event/432527/contributions/2223621/.

Press release of the Fermilab:
http://news.fnal.gov/2016/08/nova-shines-new-light-neutrinos-behave/.