The VR application is tightly aligned with the JUNO detector's geometric descriptions and event records generated by offline software. It preserves high-precision details for tens of thousands of photomultiplier tubes while converting offline data into interactive scenes that users can explore from multiple perspectives. This panoramic access to detector structures and physics events is intended to refine simulations, improve reconstruction algorithms, and support more detailed physics analysis.
A key component of the system is a spatial user interface optimized for head-mounted displays such as the Meta Quest 3. The interface integrates a sub-detector geometry control panel and an event display control panel, allowing researchers to toggle detector components, filter event types, and adjust visualization parameters directly within the virtual environment. Handheld controllers support free roaming inside the detector model so users can inspect internal structures and event features at close range.
The visualization engine renders photomultiplier tube hit information using a color gradient from light blue to dark blue to represent hit multiplicity. A high-performance particle system simulates photon propagation paths in real time, providing an intuitive view of how light generated by interactions travels through the detector. Different interaction classes are displayed with tailored modes to highlight their characteristic signatures.
For inverse beta decay events, the system clearly presents the temporal correlation between positron and neutron signals, including the characteristic delay of about 170 microseconds between the prompt and delayed components. In high-energy cosmic muon events, the VR display reconstructs muon tracks crossing the detector volume and the associated energy deposition patterns. Users can replay these event evolutions at nanosecond-level increments, enabling close inspection of timing structures and spatial correlations that might be difficult to perceive in conventional displays.
The research team, led by Yu-Mei Zhang and Zheng-Yun You, views the immersive platform as a tool for both detector operation and frontier neutrino physics studies. They are applying the system to key operational phases, such as detailed analyses of neutrino signal events and searches for rare signatures that may reveal new phenomena. The ability to navigate within a full-scale virtual detector is expected to assist in identifying subtle patterns and anomalies in large, complex datasets.
According to Professor Zheng-Yun You of Sun Yat-sen University, VR offers physicists an analysis environment that simulates being inside the detector. Through the VR interface, researchers can reconstruct an event in three-dimensional space, move through the scene, and examine features from multiple angles to uncover structures that might otherwise be overlooked. The team anticipates that immersive visualization approaches like this one could be extended to other large-scale scientific facilities that face similar challenges in understanding intricate geometries and rich event information.
The full study, titled "Unity-based virtual reality for detector and event visualization in JUNO experiment," appears in the journal Nuclear Science and Techniques and is accessible via DOI 10.1007/s41365-026-01900-x.
Research Report: Unity-based virtual reality for detector and event visualization in JUNO experiment
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