The T2K experiment now has it's very own public website!

The site is filled with useful information aimed at a general audience about the experiment and the history and physics of neutrinos, the mysterious particles which we study.

Additionally there are many useful resources for other physicists interested in neutrinos who might want to know more about our latest results.

The site went live on Monday 24th October so head over and take a look: http://t2k-experiment.org.

The T2K experiment today released their first ever physics result which has also given us our first evidence of a previously unseen phenomenon.

The experiment studies the Universe's most mysterious particles, known as "neutrinos", which exhibit a behaviour known as "neutrino oscillations". There are three distinct types of neutrino (electron, muon and tau) but as they travel they can change back and forth from one to the other. So just because you had a muon neutrino to begin with, you might not have a muon neutrino later!

In T2K, an accelerator on Japan's East coast produces a beam of muon neutrinos, then fires them almost 300km through Japan to a detector at Kamioka. What the experiment has observed, for the first time, is a hint that some of those muon neutrinos are oscillating into electron neutrinos. With many experiments around the world racing to be the first to observe this effect, T2K's publication of this hint will be a significant result in the particle physics community.

Measuring such oscillations is a crucial step in our attempts to explain why the Universe is now made almost entirely of matter and not equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, as it was at the big bang: the biggest open question in particle physics.

If it were not for the devastating earthquake earlier this year, T2K would have most likely been able to confirm this result, instead of seeing just a hint, so all eyes will be watching for what happens when the experiment restarts in the near future!

If you'd like someone to comment on this significant result, Warwick's Dr Gary Barker and Dr Steve Boyd have been working on T2K for over 6 years.

• Read our description of T2K and its physics goals
  
• Download the paper
• Read the UK press release
  
• Read the Japanese press release (in English)
• Read the article on BBC news
  

If you're planning on visiting the Manchester Science Festival this year you're in for a treat!

T2K representatives from around the UK, including Warwick, will be on hand at a special exhibition: "Super K Sonic Booooum".

The exhibit takes visitors through the Super-Kamiokande detector, accompanied by T2K particle physics experts: "On the journey they learn of neutrinos, their role in the Universe and how scientists detect them. This installation is designed to deliver physically thrilling experiences; emerging the audience on a journey through the physics of the Universe" 

Visit the Super K Sonic Booooum or Manchester Science Festival websites for more information, or read more about Super-K on our overview page.

After covering the construction of six detector modules here at Warwick, BBC reporter David Gregory has been following up the T2K experiment's progress. Dr Gary Barker hosted him in Japan at J-Parc: home of T2K's accelerator and near-detector, where the Warwick modules are being installed. Those watching BBC News this week will have seen his reports and interviews with Dr Barker.

Communicating the work that T2K is doing is an important part of our work: bringing the benefits of research to the whole of society, and national news coverage is one of the best ways we can do that!

Check out the article on the BBC news website, and read about David Gregory's impressions of science in Japan and funding in the UK on his blog.

If you missed the original report you can watch it on our resources page.

T2K is today (22.01.2010) featured on the University's front-page with a corresponding news story covering the experiment and the work done at Warwick to construct the first of six P0D ECal detector modules. Read the news story.

 

 

BBC reporter David Gregory, who visited the group at the end of 2009 to report on the completion of Warwick's first P0D ECal detector module (see story below on 20.12.2009), has included a post on T2K on his BBC blog.

To coincide with our completion of the first detector ever built by the Warwick EPP group (the P0D Ecal Left module), Warwick Communications Office filmed a podcast featuring the T2K experiment. Thanks to Lesley Scrine who produced this!

You can view the video on our resources page. 

On Sunday 12th December the T2K group featured in a short story on BBC Midlands' Today programme, talking about the construction of the first P0D ECal module.

You can view the video on our resources page.

Early on in the group's development, the Warwick iCast team visited to report on the beginning of work on, amongst other things, the T2K project. View the iCast on YouTube.