Nobel Prize in Physics

[imatfaal]

Takaaki Kajita
Super-Kamiokande Collaboration
University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

 

and

 

Arthur B. McDonald
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration
Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

 

“for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass”

 

 

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 recognises Takaaki Kajita in Japan and Arthur B. McDonald in Canada, for their key contributions to the experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass. The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe.

Around the turn of the millennium, Takaaki Kajita presented the discovery that neutrinos from the atmosphere switch between two identities on their way to the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan.

 

Meanwhile, the research group in Canada led by Arthur B. McDonald could demonstrate that the neutrinos from the Sun were not disappearing on their way to Earth. Instead they were captured with a different identity when arriving to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/advanced-physicsprize2015.pdf