Scientists working in Portugal share Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics honored five international collaborative experiments for their fundamental discovery and research into neutrino oscillation. The five teams are made up of 1,377 researchers (mostly physicists), including four scientists from LIP – Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics, one of the national research centers funded by FCT. All members of the five teams share the recognition of the prize and the $3 million (€2.79 million) prize money.

According to a statement about the award, the research carried out by the winning teams "reveals a new frontier beyond, possibly far beyond, the Standard Model of particle physics." Together, the experiments helped show that neutrinos have the ability to change identity as they travel from the sun to detectors on Earth, or in particle accelerators built precisely to investigate the nature and behavior of these particles. These findings led to the conclusion that, contrary to what was previously thought, neutrinos have mass, however small. These conclusions have implications for the Standard Model of particle physics, which requires that neutrinos have no mass.

The new observations have opened up a new generation of experiments, at the frontier between particle physics and cosmology, which could help physicists understand what are probably the most enigmatic particles in nature. After light particles, photons, neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe—the Earth is constantly bombarded by neutrinos. They can pass through almost any type of matter, making them difficult to detect—trillions of neutrinos pass through our bodies every second. 

The discovery of neutrino oscillation was recognized this year with the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald, directors of the SuperKamiokande Collaboration (Japan) and SNO – Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada) experiments – two of the Breakthrough Prize-winning experiments. The other three experiments are:  Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment (China and USA), KamLAND Collaboration(Japan), and K2K (KEK to Kamioka) and T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments (Japan). 

José Maneira, Nuno Barros, and Gersende Prior were part of the SNO experiment (led by Nobel Prize winner Arthur McDonald). Sofia Andrigna was part of the K2K and T2K experiments team. All are currently involved in the successor to SNO—SNO+—which will continue to study solar neutrinos.

The Breakthrough Prizes were created by Sergey Brin (Google), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), Mark Zuckerberg, and Priscilla Chan (Facebook), Yuri and Julia Milner, and Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang. They recognize "important, especially recent, achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences, and Mathematics." In 2016, in the third edition, $22 million (€19.5 million) was awarded to the three categories, a new Breakthrough Junior Challenge category (for videos produced by young people between the ages of 13 and 18, communicating great ideas in life sciences, physics, or mathematics), and five New Horizons awards (distinguishing the achievements of young scientists).

(Image credit: LIP)