neutrino physics

Actually, right as I’m writing this, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the development of the IceCube observatory.

IWASREALLYHAPPYTOSEETHAT!!

Since middle school, I’ve been set on pursuing research in astrophysics as a job. I did go through with it, and I’m currently finishing my BSc, working on a thesis, going to conferences, and writing a paper. At the same time, I can’t stop thinking about a couple of things all pointing in one direction:

• Mom reading me Robinson Crusoe back when I couldn’t myself;
• An ad I saw for an Antarctic research boat trip for schoolkids back when I went to school;
• A dream I had about doing ocean research in Canada;
• A dream I had about sailing to the Arctic all by myself;
• A presentation I did in 2nd year for my thermodynamics class on the cooling of a semi-infinite solid. It went into the model of the formation of the oceanic lithosphere:

• A randomly (or purposefully) found passion for multi-messenger astronomy;
• The last straw: a summer school in an institute that’s working on the TRIDENT neutrino telescope. (Finally, I’m getting to the neutrino part of this eulogy.)

Many of the presentations were focused on JUNO, TRIDENT, neutrino oscillations, and other things neutrino. Which makes a lot of sense, considering that the institute was funded per the request of Tsung Dao Lee $-$ the scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957 for work that led to the discovery of parity violation.

Parity violation is one of the first things you learn about weak interactions. …

JUNO …

TRIDENT …

One of the speakers …

That’s when I saw it all come together. Of course, that is just a biased way of thinking $-$ events only feel fateful when you look back on them. Nonetheless, I returned home from China thinking that a new path had just opened up to me.

In a few months from then, I discovered an online 2-year course on neutrino astronomy organized by Moscow State University (MSU). Looking at the topics made me want to faint from excitement, plus somehow they offerred very high amounts of funding (per Russian standards) for those who excel in this course. I for sure took the challenge personally.

MSU is one of the russian universities that are involved in the development of the Baikal neutrino observatory.