T2K (Tokai-to-Kamioka) – an international experiment led by Japan and part funded by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) - will probe the strange properties of the enigmatic neutrino to unprecedented precision, by firing the most intense neutrino beam ever designed from the east coast of Japan, all the way under the country, to a detector near Japan’s west coast.
T2K is the first of the “next generation” of oscillation experiment designed with very high intensity neutrino beams. The T2K “far detector” is the tried-and-tested Super-Kamiokande 50kt water Cherenkov detector, and the beam is optimised to enhance the oscillation signal and to suit the energies at which Super-Kamiokande can best measure the incoming neutrino type and energy.
Both the beam and the way its neutrinos interact with water must be very well understood for an oscillation discovery to be made, and a “near detector” will be positioned a few hundred metres from the beam origin to make measurements on the beam before it starts oscillating.The T2K collaboration consists of 508 physicists from 62 institutes in 12 countries.
Imperial College London
Lancaster University
Queen Mary, University of London
STFC Daresbury Laboratory
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
University of Liverpool
University of Oxford
University of Sheffield
University of Warwick
Last updated: 21 July 2016