On November 8, 2015 representatives of five different neutrino experiments, including Nobel prize laureates 2015 Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald, have received the joint award Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics 2016.

Breakthrough prize, which the Guardian calls “Science Oscar”, was established in 2012. This year the prize in the amount of $ 3 million in the section of fundamental physics will be divided among five teams: the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in China, KamLAND collaboration in Japan, the K2K and T2K experiments on neutrino oscillations on a long base in Japan, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada and Super-Kamiokande collaboration in Japan. These experiments investigated the nature of the “ghost particle” – the most common massive particle in the Universe and the variations of its three states in motion.

Among 1,300 nominees for the prestigious award there is the head of the Department № 11 “Experimental methods of nuclear physics”, RAS academician V.A. Matveev, Professor of the Department № 11 Yu.G. Kudenko, the Scientific Head of the MEPhI Interdepartmental Laboratory of Experimental Nuclear Physics Yu.V. Efremenko.

In the award nomination stated that prize was given “for fundamental discovery and exploration of neutrino oscillations, revealing a new frontier beyond, and possibly far beyond, the standard model of particle physics”.