boson and causes the neutrino to convert into a charged lepton: an electron, a muon, or a tauon, or one of their antiparticles, if an antineutrino). According to the laws of physics neutrinos must have mass, but only a "smidgen of rest mass" – perhaps less than a "millionth as much as an electron" – so the gravitational force caused by neutrinos has so far proved too weak to detect, leaving the weak interaction as the main method of detection: Neutral current In a neutral current interaction, the neutrino enters and then leaves the detector after having transferred some of its energy and momentum to a ‘target’ particle. If the target particle is charged and sufficiently lightweight (e.g. an electron), it might be accelerated to a relativistic speed and consequently emit Cherenkov radiation, which can be observed directly. All three neutrino flavors, or flavours (electronic, muonic, and tauonic) can participate, regardless of the neutrino energy. However, no neutrino flavor information is left behind. Charged current In a charged current interaction, a high-energy neutrino transforms into its partner lepton (electron, muon, or tauon). However, if the neutrino does not have sufficient energy to create its heavier partner's mass, the charged current interaction is effectively unavailable to it. Neutrinos from the Sun and from nuclear reactors have enough energy to create electrons. Most accelerator-created neutrino beams can also create muons, and a very few can create tauons. A detector which can distinguish among these leptons can reveal the flavor of the neutrino incident to a charged current interaction; because the interaction involves the exchange of a W boson, the ‘target’ particle also changes (e.g., ). Detection techniques Scintillators Antineutrinos were first detected near the Savannah River nuclear reactor by the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment in 1956. Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan used two targets containing a solution of cadmium chloride in water. Two scintillation detectors were placed next to the water targets. Antineutrinos with an energy above the threshold of 1.8 MeV caused charged current "inverse beta-decay" interactions with the protons in the water, producing positrons and neutrons. The resulting positrons annihilate with electrons, creating pairs of coincident photons with an energy of about 0.5 MeV each, which could be detected by the two scintillation detectors above and below the target. The neutrons were captured by cadmium nuclei, resulting in delayed gamma rays of about 8 MeV that were detected a few microseconds