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"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass".
The authors solved the neutrino problem that started in mid 1960's until 2002. They proposed a modification of the Standard Model of particle physics so that the neutrinos produced in Sun's interior change in their way to Earth, been much harder to be detected.
"for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider".
The boson of Higgs was the last particle in the Standard Model to be observed. Higgs' bosons lead to mass: they would attach more to some particles than others, explaining the observed differences of mass in particles. Some of the Higgs' boson properties were observed in the CERN experiments.
"for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae".
Comparing the SN I type brightness, believed to be constant, the authors found that the far SN I are too faint for a non-accelerating universe. So, to be expanding at that rate, the universe would need a "cosmological constant", or the dark energy.
"for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication" (allowing the transmission of light signals over very long distances and with a minimal energy loss).
"for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor" (a very efficient photosensor with high linear information).
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation". The authors started with the COBE satellite the systematic study of the CMB. The small fluctuations of temperature (≲104) are consistent withe the density fluctuations that lead to the objects formation in current universe (cluster of galaxies and galaxies).
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos".
Davis Jr. developed the idea of monitor a large amount of matter, isolated caves to avoid faint sources of emission. The main detector was based on a Chloride (Cl) solution in water. After interaction with a neutrino, the Cl atom becomes a Ar isotope, that is luminescent. But the reaction are rare: the first experiment trapped 2000 solar neutrinos over 25 years ina 380000 liters tank! Koshiba observed neutrinos arriving before the light in a SN explosion, i.e., a large number of neutrinos were fired out in the early phases of the SN explosion.
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources". Giacconi obtained the first evidence of extra-solar system X-ray sources in 1962, suggesting the existence of astrophysical hot gases and other extreme environment conditions, as black holes.
The cosmic microwave background is polarized at the level of a few microkelvin. There are two types of polarization, called E-modes and B-modes. This is in analogy to electrostatics, in which the electric field (E-field) has a vanishing curl and the magnetic field (B-field) has a vanishing divergence.
The E-modes arise naturally from Thomson scattering in a heterogeneous plasma. The B-modes are not sourced by standard scalar type perturbations. Instead they can be created by two mechanisms: the first one is by gravitational lensing of E-modes, which has been measured by the South Pole Telescope in 2013; the second one is from gravitational waves arising from cosmic inflation.
Detecting the B-modes is extremely difficult, particularly as the degree of foreground contamination is unknown, and the weak gravitational lensing signal mixes the relatively strong E-mode signal with the B-mode signal.
Primordial gravitational waves are gravitational waves that could be observed in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background and having their origin in the early universe. Models of cosmic inflation predict that such gravitational waves should appear; thus, their detection supports the theory of inflation, and their strength can confirm and exclude different models of inflation.
On 17 March 2014 it was announced that the BICEP2 instrument had detected the first type of B-modes, consistent with inflation and gravitational waves in the early universe at the level of r = 0.20 +0.07−0.05...
Many people are skeptical, suggesting that light scattering from cosmic dust and synchrotron radiation from electrons, both in the Milky Way Galaxy, could have caused the readings. And the polarimetric module of Planck telescope did not measure the B-mode signal...
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PhRvL.112x1101A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background#Polarization
"While there has been evidence of these types of flares before, there's never been enough information to say what kind of star fell victim to the black hole, and what was the mass of the black hole that destroyed the star", the authors said. The works was only possible with a temporal sequence of measurements, thanks to the PAN-Starrs survey, measuring the flare over multi wavelengths with high time cadence and modeling.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature10990.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/black-hole-swallows-star/
NACO instrument images in infrared with AO over 10 years, covering almost 1000 stars orbiting Sgr A* (a strong radio source).
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002Natur.419..694S
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ApJ...800..125V
http://www.eso.org/public/brazil/news/eso1512/
Record-breaking X-ray flare from Milky Way’s supermassive black hole