Irvine Michigan Brookhaven Experiment

The Irvine Michigan Brookhaven Experiment (IMB) was an experiment to observe proton decay and to observe neutrinos in a salt mine on Lake Erie in the USA (near Fairport Harbor ). It was operated by the University of California, Irvine , the University of Michigan, and the Brookhaven National Laboratory .

Like Kamiokande II, it was originally intended to observe the proton decay predicted by some GUTs and was able to demonstrate a lower limit on the lifespan of years. ${\displaystyle 10^{33}}$

The experiment consisted of a cubic tank of ultra-pure water (2.5 million gallons or 9.4 million liters) surrounded by 2048 photo amplifiers of the Cerenkov detector type . It became known because, like Kamiokande, it observed neutrinos from the supernova SN 1987A (they observed 8 neutrinos of about that passed the tank, Kamiokande observed 11 neutrinos from the supernova). For this they received the Bruno Rossi Prize in 1989 with Kamiokande . ${\displaystyle 10^{16}}$

Construction began in 1979 and the detector was active from 1982. He collected data until 1991.

Participants included Maurice Goldhaber (Brookhaven) and Frederick Reines (co-speakers, University of California, Irvine), John C. (Jack) Vander Velde (co-speakers, University of Michigan), Henry W. Sobel , Lawrence Sulak .

The IMB group then worked on the Super-Kamiokande experiment, for which parts of IMB were also used.

Publications (selection)

• F. Reines, JM LoSecco, D. Sinclair: The search for proton decay, Scientific American 1985, No. 6
• RM Bionta u. a., Search for proton decay into e + 0, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 51, 1983, p. 27, abstract ${\displaystyle \pi }$
• TJ Haines et al. a .: Calculation of Atmospheric Neutrino-Induced Backgrounds in a Nucleon-Decay Search, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 57, 1986, p. 1986
• RM Bionta u. a .: Observation of a neutrino burst in coincidence with supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 58, 1987, pp. 1494-1496

Web links

• The IMB Experiment (John Vander Velde)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About 30 to 40 decay modes were examined. TJ Haines et al. a. Physical Review Letters, Volume 57, 1986, p. 1986