Major new experiment in neutrino physics to begin in 2020

Sep 12, 2018

Hyper-Kamiokande Experiment to Begin Construction in April 2020

A statement was issued today by the University of Tokyo recognising the significant scientific discoveries which the planned Hyper-Kamiokande experiment would enable. It states that, based on these exciting prospects, the University of Tokyo will ensure that construction of the experiment will begin in 2020. Hyper-Kamiokande now moves from planning to a real experiment.

The Hyper-Kamiokande proto-collaboration welcomes this exciting endorsement of the project and the boost it will give to increasing even further the international contributions and participation in the experiment.

Introducing the statement, Prof. Takaaki Kajita, Director of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research at the University of Tokyo and 2015 Nobel Laureate in Physics, pointed out that the Japanese funding agency MEXT has included seed funding for Hyper-Kamiokande in its JFY 2019 budget request. He illustrated with many examples that it is standard in Japan for large projects to begin with a year of seed funding, and said that in any case the University of Tokyo commitment meant that Hyper-Kamiokande construction will begin in April 2020.

The Hyper-Kamiokande Proto-Collaboration will now work to finalize designs. VISPA members, Akira Konaka, Mark Hartz, and Dean Karlen are part of this exciting project, with Akira leading the Canadian group and Mark leading the project to build the near detector. Hyper-Kamiokande will follow up on the discoveries made by the T2K collaboration, for which 8 VISPA members received the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

University of Tokyo statement regarding the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment<http://www.hyper-k.org/en/news/news-20180912.html>