Proton instability, expected at some level in many extensions of the standard mode, offers a unique probe in searches for the ultimate theory of interactions. The lifetime of the proton depends on the scale of grand unification. The group is now collaborating on a 50,000 Ton detector located in a mine in Japan. These detectors are also useful for many other investigations. The collaboration received the 1989 Rossi prize in astrophysics for this observation.
Reactors are ideal sources of low-energy neutrinos.
The UCI group has maintained a reactor neutrino program since the time of Fred Reines' pioneering work in the 1950s, when the neutrino was first observed. We are currently mounting two experiments at reactors in France. We detect reactor fission neutrinos by observing inverse-beta decay on free protons in a liquid scintillator detector. Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Composition with the IMB-3 Detector, D. Casper, et al., Phys. A Search for Muon Neutrino Oscillations with the IMB Detector, R. Becker-Szendy, et al., Phys.