2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for neutrino oscillation

12 november 2015

Only one month after the recognition of neutrino oscillation in this year’s Nobelprize for Physics, neutrino science and its researchers are once again in the spotlight. The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to five experiments investigating neutrino oscillation, among which the KamLAND experiment in Japan and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada. Nikhef researchers Patrick Decowski and Christopher Tunnell are among the prize-winning members of the KamLAND and SNO collaborations respectively.

Prof. dr. Patrick Decowski, program leader of the Nikhef Dark Matter group: "I am very honored and happy to be a co-recipient of this prize. The experiments to investigate fundamental questions such as the oscillation properties of neutrinos are extremely complicated and typically done in teams of tens or even hundreds of scientists. In KamLAND, about eighty of us collaborated together and it is wonderful that this collaboration is now also recognized."

From the breakthroughprize.org website:

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics ($3 million) was awarded to five experiments investigating neutrino oscillation and will be shared equally among all five.

The teams include Daya Bay (China); KamLAND (Japan); K2K / T2K (Japan); Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada); and Super-Kamiokande (Japan). The award was accepted by team leaders Yifang Wang and Kam-Biu Luk (Daya Bay); Atsuto Suzuki (KamLAND); Koichiro Nishikawa (K2K / T2K); Arthur B. McDonald (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory); and Takaaki Kajita and Yoichiro Suzuki (Super-Kamiokande). In total, the five teams are comprised of more than 1,300 individual physicists, and all members will share in the recognition for their work.

The award is presented for the fundamental discovery and exploration of neutrino oscillations, revealing a new frontier beyond, and possibly far beyond, the standard model of particle physics.

Additional information and the full list of the prize-winning members of the experiments are available at www.BreakthroughPrize.org.

About the Breakthrough Prizes:

The Breakthrough Prizes honor important, primarily recent, achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics.

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was founded in 2012 by Yuri Milner to recognize those individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists — theoretical, mathematical, experimental — working on the deepest mysteries of the Universe.

More information:
Science Communications department – mail – 020 5925075
Prof. Dr. Patrick Decowski – mail – 020 5922145

Read the Nikhef news article about the Nobel Prize for Physics 2015