The deployment of the giant Russian-Chinese neutrino telescope HUNT on Lake Baikal will take about five years. During 2026–2030, scientists plan to conduct all the necessary research and create a unique complex, said Zhan-Arys Dzhilkibaev, a leading researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The project itself was originally developed by Chinese colleagues, and then when they realized that such a detector was only possible on Lake Baikal, they offered participation to [Russian scientists]. We assessed our capabilities and think that this is quite realistic.
The new telescope will contain 55,000 optical modules. It will be placed on the bottom of the lake in the central part of the water area, and the coastal observation center will appear in the city of Baikalsk. Small vessels will be needed to lay the cable along the bottom of Lake Baikal. Scientists are currently working on their creation.
The search for neutrinos (an elementary particle that has almost no mass, no charge, and hardly interacts with matter) will allow us to obtain information about fundamental cosmic processes: nuclear fusion in stars, supernovas, black holes, as well as study the properties of matter, search for dark matter, and refine the model of the expanding Universe.
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