Through a series of technical breakthroughs, including designing and constructing detector modules, the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment became the most sensitive among all competing experiments. In 2012, Prof. Luk and colleagues from across the world announced their discovery of a new type of neutrino oscillation, observed deep underground in Daya Bay. This tremendously successful and important experiment profoundly influences the future of particle physics — it provides a crucial key to understanding how neutrinos change identity, and will allow scientists to compare neutrino and antineutrino So how do you catch something as elusive as a neutrino? You build a trap. Prof. Luk started with looking for the perfect conditions and found that the Daya Bay nuclear power facility’s surroundings and high power output made it an excellent place to conduct neutrino experiments, designed to "trap" record-breaking number of the ghostly particles for carrying out highprecision measurements related to the particles’ oscillation. Researchers from all over the world, including the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Energy, clambered on board to participate in this experiment. To me, research is like solving puzzles — and the eureka moment is just fantastic. Both the process and the end result excite me and make me look forward to different challenges.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk5Njg=