Dr. Sampa Bhadra

Biography

Sampa Bhadra specializes in High Energy Particle Physics, particularly focusing on neutrinos and their properties, such as neutrino mixing and Charge-Parity (CP) violation. His research is pivotal in understanding fundamental particles and their roles in the universe, which is significant in addressing unsolved problems in particle physics and cosmology. Recently, he became a member of the T2K experiment in Japan, following the groundbreaking discovery of neutrino mass by the SuperKamiokande experiment in Japan and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada. This discovery challenged previous assumptions of the Standard Model of particle physics by revealing the quantum mechanical mixing of the three known neutrinos, encoded in a matrix form. The goals of T2K include determining an unknown matrix parameter, theta_13, by studying the transformation of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos, known as neutrino oscillations. The T2K experiment utilizes beams of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos produced by protons colliding with a graphite target, and requires precise monitoring of the proton beam to understand the neutrino flux, which is essential for accurate physics studies. Bhadra has worked on monitoring devices, including an Optical Transition Radiation (OTR) detector, crucial for measuring proton beam characteristics under high radiation conditions. An important outcome of the experiments indicates that the measurement of theta_13 is non-zero and relatively large, leading to T2K team receiving a prestigious prize from La Recherche, a French science magazine for their findings. Bhadra plans to further investigate the origin of matter and antimatter asymmetry by comparing the data collected from neutrino and anti-neutrino beams.

Research Interests