Canadian participation in the T2K neutrino oscillation experiment

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) neutrino oscillation experiment is a long-baseline neutrino experiment that sends a neutrino beam from J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, in Tokai, Japan) to the Super-Kamiokande water Cerenkov detector, located 295km away in Kamioka. The goal of the project is to study the oscillations of a beam of muon neutrinos to determine how often they transform into other types of neutrinos while in transit. These measurements aim to determine the neutrino mixing angle theta-13 and to search for a possible non-zero CP-violating phase in the neutrino mixing matrix. A three year detector construction and operation grant for the Canadian T2K project was funded in April 2006. The Canadian group has taken responsibility for major parts of the experiment: the time projection chambers (TPC) and fine-grained detectors (FGD) for the off-axis near detector, and the primary proton beam monitor in front of the production target using optical transition radiation (OTR). Detector construction and commissioning was completed in 2009, and the experiment has successfully been taking data since early 2010. Canadian T2K members are leading several central analysis efforts and ontribute to analysis of near detector data, Super-Kamiokande beam data, and beamline analysis. T2K anticipates operating for at least five more years. The Canadian T2K group consists of 19 senior scientists, 9 postdoctoral fellows, and 14 graduate students.