China to build underground neutrino lab

China plans to build a large underground laboratory for neutrino experiments in Jiangmen of the southern Guangdong Province by the end of this year.

The project is led by China with more than 200 scientists from over 50 research institutes and universities around the world, according to a statement issued by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.

Once completed, the lab will be the second Chinese neutrino project and it will help scientists determine the neutrino mass hierarchy.

Following the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in Guangdong, Chinese and foreign physicists announced in 2012 that they had confirmed and measured a third type of neutrino oscillation.

The Jiangmen observatory, to be built 700 meters underground, will be more than 100 times larger than the Daya Bay project, the statement said.

The construction is expected to be finished and the lab put into use by the end of 2019.

"It will help us to better understand the rules of the universe and the particle world," said Wang Yifang, the IHEP director.