Thai and Chinese Researchers Team up to Tackle Puzzles on the Frontiers of Science

4 January 2023

Science reporter Holly Chik investigates Chinese-Thai collaboration in fundamental science and cutting-edge technology. As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s influence on Bangkok spans everything from smart city AI to fusion energy. In the first part of the series, she looks at efforts to work together on the frontiers of physics.

Thai physicist Chayanit Asawatangtrakuldee is part of a 700-strong team of international scientists behind the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in China – which is set to become the world’s largest detector of neutrinos.

To catch the tiny, ghostlike particles that pass through our bodies by the trillions every second, the global team is setting up the US$300 million Juno facility 700 metres (3,000 feet) underground in southern China. It is due to commence operation in June.

It has taken more than one country to build the experiment – a plastic sphere 13 storeys tall that will be filled with 20,000 tonnes of a special liquid and immersed in 35,000 tonnes of pure water.

“We helped the magnetic field to be installed inside the Juno experiment when they started to study how to cancel out the Earth’s magnetic field [which interferes with the detection of neutrinos],” Chayanit, from Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview in Bangkok.

The Chulalongkorn team also worked on a device that is part of the detector used to increase the signal given off by the particles, which is called a photomultiplier.