Kam-Biu Luk
Current projects :
There are compelling evidences for neutrino oscillation. Oscillations between three kinds of neutrino are completely described by three mixing angles, two mass-squared differences, and one CP-violating phase. CP violation in the lepton sector, if exists, might explain why there is more matter than anti-matter in the Universe. Yet whether the CP-violating effect can be studied with neutrinos or not is dictated by the last unknown mixing angle θ13. The primary goal of the Daya Bay experiment in China is to determine the value of θ13 by measuring the change in flux and the energy spectrum of the antineutrinos generated by the powerful Daya Bay nuclear power complex with three sets of detectors located underground at three different locations that are within 2 km from the reactors.
With the discovery of a non-zero θ13 by Daya Bay in 2012, new generation of experiments can go forward to look for CP-violation in neutrino oscillation. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is such an experiment. An intense muon (anti)neutrino beam will be sent from Fermilab near Chicago to a 40-kt liquid-argon time projection chamber detector located at 4850' underground in SURF to look for the appearance of electron (anti)neutrinos. Any difference in the number of observed electron neutrino from the electron antineutrinos will signal CP violation.
In the News
New discovery is key to understanding neutrino transformations
The joint China-U.S. Daya Bay experiment to explore the multiple personalities of neutrinos announced its first results, paving the way for further experiments on whether neutrinos and antineurtinos have similar split identities
New neutrino data may shed light on post-Big Bang matter formation
Researchers studying the birth of the universe are getting some of the most accurate measurements to date of neutrinos, electrically neutral particles that zip about close to the speed of light. They hope that the data, obtained from the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, an international collaboration led by U.S. and China scientists, will reveal how matter was formed immediately after the Big Bang. Physicists from Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley are leading the U.S. team.