IGFAE participates in Invisibles 26, which brings Nobel Prize Takaaki Kajita to A Coruña

round August 12, on the occasion of the total solar eclipse that will be visible in much of Galicia, scientific and outreach events will take place one after another. One of the highlighted events will be the international congress Invisibles 26, a meeting focused on research into the most unknown matter in the universe, such as neutrinos or dark matter. The event, which will take place from August 10 to 14 at the Afundación building, in the center of A Coruña, will feature a distinguished guest: Takaaki Kajita, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015, will give the opening lecture on the morning of Monday the 10th.

Kajita, discoverer of neutrino oscillations, was one of the promoters of the Super-Kamiokande and Hyper-Kamiokande experiments, developed in Japan, which seek to better understand the nature of these elusive particles. IGFAE, through José Ángel Hernando Morata, Pablo Fernández Menéndez (Ramón y Cajal researcher), and Diego Costas Rodríguez (PhD student), works on both projects.

Invisibles 26 will bring together throughout the week some of the leading scientists in the study of neutrinos, such as Francis Halzen (leader of the IceCube experiment). The congress is part of the European project ASYMMETRY, funded by the European Union’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Staff Exchange programme, with the aim of fostering international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration in research and innovation through the temporary exchange of research staff. IGFAE researcher José Ángel Hernando Morata is part of the local organizing committee.

IGFAE in Hyper-Kamiokande

For years, IGFAE staff have participated in several neutrino detection projects, such as NEXT (at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory, in the Aragonese Pyrenees), or HERON, an observatory planned in Argentina, which has received funding from the European Research Council’s Synergy Grant. Another future project is Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K), which will be the largest underground experiment to date for the study of neutrinos.

Hyper-K sucederá a Kamiokande (1983-1996) e Super-Kamiokande (1996-actualidade), dous experimentos co mesmo propósito que funcionaron durante as últimas décadas, e que achegaron grandes fitos na física de neutrinos. Entre outros recoñecementos, os achados aquí realizados foron recoñecidos cos premios Nobel de Física en 2002 (Masatoshi Koshiba) e 2015 (Takaaki Kajita).

The most prominent element is a huge underground tank 68 metres in diameter and 71 metres high — as tall as the towers of Praza do Obradoiro and almost as wide as the nave of the Cathedral of Santiago — which will be filled with 260,000 tonnes of ultrapure water. The walls will be covered with more than 20,000 photomultiplier tubes, capable of detecting the light that neutrinos would emit when interacting with water molecules.

Thanks to its larger size and sensitivity, Hyper-K will obtain a large volume of data that will allow a very precise measurement of the characteristics of neutrinos and their importance in the description of the universe around us. Hyper-K is expected to detect a greater number of neutrinos and obtain much more precise data, among which the possible observation of CP violation in these particles stands out. Data taking is scheduled to begin in 2028.

Thanks to its larger size and sensitivity, Hyper-K will obtain a large volume of data that will allow a very precise measurement of the characteristics of neutrinos and their importance in the description of the universe around us. Hyper-K is expected to detect a greater number of neutrinos and obtain much more precise data, among which the possible observation of CP violation in these particles stands out. Data taking is scheduled to begin in 2028.

“Neutrinos are a key piece in understanding nature at its most fundamental level,” explains Pablo Fernández Menéndez. “Although they are very abundant, their weak interaction with matter means that detectors must be gigantic and operate for many years. After three decades of experience and good results with Super-Kamiokande, we have discovered some of the properties of these particles and laid the foundations for the ambitious Hyper-Kamiokande project, which will allow us to precisely measure their properties and potentially explain why the current universe is made of matter and not antimatter”.