Physics Goals
The goal of the T2K experiment is to gain a more complete understanding of neutrino oscillation parameters. Previous neutrino experiments have observed the disappearance of muon neutrinos in a beam as they oscillate to tau neutrinos, but oscillation from ν
μ to ν
e has not been observed. The reason for this is that the mixing angle θ13, that controls the probability for this oscillation, is very small. T2K hopes to be the first experiment to measure the appearance of electron neutrinos in a muon neutrino beam. T2K's ND280 detector will take data on neutrino interaction cross section measurements on water. Precise measurements of the other neutrino mixing parameter Δm2
23 and θ23 are another aim of the experiment. Future upgrades to T2K could yield measurement of the CP violation phase δ by comparing oscillations of neutrinos to those of antineutrinos.
Read more about this topic: T2K Experiment
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“He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. But we would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word “chance” have any meaning.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)