Scientists working in Portugal share Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

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

According to a press release about the prize, 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 to show that neutrinos have the ability to change their 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 discoveries led to the conclusion that, contrary to what had been thought, neutrinos do have mass, however small. These conclusions have implications for the Standard Model of particle physics, which requires neutrinos to be massless.

The new observations have opened up a new generation of experiments, on the border between particle physics and cosmology, which could help physicists understand what are probably the most enigmatic particles in nature. After the particles of light, 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 and are difficult to detect - thousands of billions of neutrinos pass through our bodies every second. 

The discovery of neutrino oscillation was recognized this year with the Nobel Prize in Physics, which honoured 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. All are currently involved in the successor experiment 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 distinguish "important successes, especially recent ones, in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics". In 2016, in the 3rd edition, 22 million dollars (19.5 million euros) were 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 prizes (distinguishing the successes of young scientists).

(Image credit: LIP)