New research suggests that neutrinos in the early universe may have transformed into a previously unknown form of radiation. A study from Washington University in St. Louis offers a new way to explain certain puzzling observations about how the universe evolved.

Bhupal Dev and his colleagues report the results in a paper published in Physical Review Letters. Dev is an associate professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and a fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, both at WashU.

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe. Often described as ghostlike because they interact so weakly with matter, neutrinos play an important role in shaping how cosmic structures form and evolve.