Reactor neutrinos reveal hints of physics beyond the standard model

The CONUS experiment uses germanium detectors next to reactor cores to catch coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering—a subtle interaction predicted by the standard model. New data from two sites improved constraints on neutrino magnetic moment, charge, and interactions with unknown particles by factors of 2–10, and independently measured a fundamental constant of electromagnetism. These results show precision tabletop detectors can compete with colliders for discovering hidden physics.