Here is a group photo of the Super-Kamiocollaborator guests of the laureate. From left: Masato Takita, Yoshitaka Itow, Ed Kearns, Hank Sobel, Takaaki Kajita, Hank Sobel, Yoichiro Suzuki, Kenzo Nakamura, Masayuki Nakahata.
and a greeting to Ed’s PY 251 students!
Super-K, K2K and T2K (the latter two combined) were recognized along with Daya Bay, KamLAND and SNO by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, a relatively new award. The awarded for Super-K was received by Kajita and Suzuki, with authors of the 1998 and 2001 atmospheric neutrino and solar neutrino papers being named as co-laureates. The K2K/T2K award was received by Nishikawa and likewise, numerous authors of key papers were named as co-laureates.
photo: Symmetry MagazinePast and present BU Neutrino Group members named are: Flor de Maria Blaszczyk, Shantanu Desai, Fanny Dufour, Matt Earl, Alec Habig, Ed Kearns, Soo Bong Kim, Serge Likhoded, Mike Litos, Mark Messier, Colin Okada (SNO/KamLAND), Jen Raaf, Kate Scholberg, Jim Stone, Larry Sulak, Chris Walter, and Wei Wang.
Here are some links to some news articles and editorials:
Scientific American
New York Times
Nature
Clockwise from left: Dan Gastler, Ed Kearns, Nobel Laureate Takaaki Kajita, Wei Wang, Mike Litos, Jen Raaf, and Fanny Dufour.
The discovery of neutrino mass and neutrino oscillation has finally been recognized by the Physics Nobel Prize! The 2015 prize goes to Takaaki Kajita from Super-K and Art McDonald from SNO, recognizing our studies of atmospheric neutrinos and solar neutrinos as the key to recognizing that neutrinos change from one flavor into another and that neutrinos have mass.
Jeff Gustafson’s search for dinucleon decay into pions was published and listed as an Editor’s Suggestion by Physical Review D. His search in three modes was negative but set new lifetime limits more than two orders of magnitude more restrictive than those of previous searches. http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.072009
The Super-K collaboration has (finally!) published our paper (M. Litos et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 131803) based on Mike Litos’ Ph.D. thesis search for dinucleon decay into kaons. This process changes baryon number by two units without any change in lepton number, and therefore is sensitive to very different underlying physics than most nucleon decay searches. This particular mode is allowed in supersymmetric models that have R-symmetry violation. A possible Feynman diagram is shown below. This is the first ever search for a baryon number violating process that also changes strangeness by two units.
Mike is now a postdoctoral scientist at SLAC working on plasma wakefield acceleration. Here is a photo of Mike working on the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests that was featured as one of the 12 Most Awesome of 2012!
Neil deGrasse Tyson paid a virtual visit to the Super-K detector to discuss supernova neutrinos. The vignette appeared in the April 13 episode of COSMOS, “Deeper, Deeper, Deeper, Still”, Episode 6.
Our paper detailing the asymmetry between the flux of solar neutrinos at night versus daytime:
First Indication of Terrestrial Matter Effects on Solar Neutrino Oscillation
has been selected as a Physical Review Letters Editors Suggestion as well as Featured in Physics. It is also being reviewed by articles in Physics Today, Physics World (UK) and Physics Focus by the APS.
Our most recent T2K publication (Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 061802) shows the electron neutrino appearance signal interpreted in comparison with the measurements of electron antineutrino disappearance by the reactor experiments. The paper was featured in a PRL Viewpoint article discussing how these results are first steps along the path towards observing CP violation in neutrinos.
The T2K collaboration is releasing the latest results on electron neutrino appearance, starting with the European Physical Society meeting today. This includes 2013 data taking at 220 kW and a world-record 1.2e14 protons-per-pulse.
In the new data we found 28 single-ring quasi-elastic electron neutrino candidates over an expected background of 4.6 events from the trace of electron neutrinos in the beam and mistaken neutral current interactions. For the value of θ13 from reactor experiments we expected about 20 events, so our expected significance is greater than 5 sigma. These recent results clearly establish the phenomenon of electron neutrino appearance in neutrino oscillations. The figure below shows the distribution of electron neutrino energies for the 28 events.
The T2K collaboration accompanied this new report with a press release that can be found here: http://t2k-experiment.org/2013/07/new-results-from-t2k-conclusively-show-muon-neutrinos-transform-to-electron-neutrinos/.
