At 12pm on August 19th, 2019, the New Book Launch of “The Frontier of Neutrino and Particle Physics in China- Mysteries of Neutrino Oscillation (Scientist’s Dream Collection)”was successfully held in Shanghai Book Fair by Shanghai Technology and Education Press.
Neutrino, a special elementary particle, covers many scientific fields such as contemporary Particles Physics, Nuclear Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology. It is a key to unlock the mysteries of the origins of the earth, stars and the universe. Neutrino was once known as massless as photons.
It was not until 20 years ago, physicists, by discovering the “neutrino oscillation “phenomenon, found out that neutrinos actually had tiny masses. This discovery reveals the imperfections in the current Standard Model of Particle Physics, that the mystery of neutrino oscillation has not yet been well explained. At this event, Dr. Xu Donglian, a young scientist of Tsung-Dao Lee Institute，SJTU, and Dr. Xing Zhizhong, a research scientist at the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of Physical Sciences School of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, interpreted vividly the past and present of the neutrino to the audiences from the perspectives of history, updated progress, and possible research directions in the future, etc.
Dr. Xu made a lecture entitled “Capturing ‘Ghost Particles’ from Deep Space in a Glacier at the South Pole”, and she described the whole story of neutrinos, as well as the latest achievements of a widely internationally collaborating project, the“IceCube”experiment located at the geographic South Pole in which she participated in personally. This international research findings were selected as one of the most significant international scientific breakthroughs in 2018 by Science Magazine. By using lively photos and animations, she showed the IceCube light-detecting sensors and the IceCube detector’s “civil construction” process to the audience, introducing how scientists used these to conduct experimental research and reconstruct the neutrinos’ characteristics detected by the IceCube detector. She concluded:” I would like to share this story with everyone: we went to the South Pole, dug the ice layers, looked at the sky with another mechanism and finally saw a new world.” Furthermore, she pointed out that from electromagnetic radiation to gravitational waves and then to neutrinos, we were actually in the era of muti-messenger astronomy, and in the future, this field will be promising.
Chinese scientists enjoy pivotal position in the field of neutrino research. The Daya Bay neutrino experiment, led by Professor Wang Yifang, discovered the third brand new neutrino oscillation mode in 2012, which improved the understanding of the three modes of neutrinos’ transformation. With this discovery, this team was awarded the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, an international science prize, even higher than Nobel monetarily. One of the Daya Bay researchers, Xing Zhizhong, introduced the inspiration of the research team after winning this international scientific competition and shared some secrets of the team.
These two outstanding scientists not only introduced the relevant scientific knowledge and research details of neutrino to the audiences, but also put forward the understanding of science from the perspective of frontier researchers of the field, both expressed their passion and upbeat attitude in the scientific research.