Art McDonald wins 2004 Bruno Pontecorvo Prize for SNO results
The director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), Arthur McDonald of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, has been awarded the Bruno Pontecorvo Prize for 2004 by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. McDonald receives the prize "for the demonstration of solar neutrino oscillations in the SNO experiment".
SNO has observed neutrinos from boron-8 decay in the Sun via two types of neutrino reactions - one sensitive only to electron neutrinos and others sensitive to all active neutrino flavours - and has found clear evidence of neutrino-flavour change. This confirms the hypothesis of Pontecorvo and Vladimir Gribov that the neutrino-flavour change is responsible for the deficit of solar neutrinos observed in other experiments, thereby solving the long-standing "solar-neutrino problem". SNO's measurements combined with other solar experiments and the reactor neutrino measurements of the KamLAND experiment determine that the oscillation of massive neutrinos is the dominant mechanism for the flavour change.
In his report at the session of the JINR Scientific Council, McDonald not only clearly demonstrated the achievements of the SNO Collaboration but also vividly depicted the Canadian period of Pontecorvo's activities in 1943-1948, in particular his proposals concerning neutrino sources and methods for detecting them.
A special seminar "The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory: confirming Pontecorvo's neutrino theories" was held at the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems where Pontecorvo worked from 1950 until the end of his life. The seminar was devoted both to the latest results obtained by SNO and the future neutrino investigations at the SNOLAB underground laboratory; Pontecorvo's role in the development of massive neutrino physics and oscillation theory as a founder of this field of research was also discussed.
Max Planck award goes to particle physics and radio astronomy
The Max Planck Research Award 2005 has been awarded to the German particle physicist Christof Wetterich and the US radio astronomer Christopher Carilli. The award for international co-operation is made to one scientist working in Germany and one working abroad, both recognized at the international level and from whom continued high-calibre scientific work can be expected in the context of international co-operation.
Wetterich, from Heidelberg University, receives the prize in recognition of his work on cosmology, in particular dark energy. With his proposal of a dynamical dark energy, "quintessence", he has provided one of the most popular explanations for the accelerated expansion of the universe. He is also well known as an outstanding expert at bringing forward co-operation between theoretical physics, astronomical observations and numerical simulations.
Carilli works at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico, and is an expert in radio astronomy. He observes traces of the most distant galaxies at early times in the universe and promotes the development of observation devices and measuring techniques. Carilli is also heavily involved in the development of the next generation of radio telescopes.