James Cronin

James Cronin was an American particle physicist who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering CP violation in neutral kaon decays.

Val Fitch: Val Fitch was an American experimental physicist who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering CP violation. Cronin and Fitch led the experiment that revealed CP violation in neutral kaon decays.
CP violation: CP violation is a difference between physical processes and their combined charge-conjugate and parity-reversed versions. Cronin’s Nobel-winning result established that this symmetry is not exact in nature.
1964 Brookhaven experiment: The 1964 Brookhaven experiment compared decays of neutral kaons and found a small fraction decaying into two pions. Cronin and Fitch’s experiment supplied the first evidence of CP violation.
Kobayashi–Maskawa mechanism: The Kobayashi–Maskawa mechanism explains CP violation in the Standard Model through complex quark-mixing parameters. The discovery created a need to explain CP violation; this mechanism later incorporated it into the Standard Model.
Maurice Goldhaber: Maurice Goldhaber was a physicist known for experimental work on nuclear physics and particle properties. Goldhaber directed Brookhaven National Laboratory when Cronin and Fitch carried out their discovery there.
Neutral kaon: A neutral kaon is a meson made from a down or strange quark and its antiquark partner, with zero electric charge. The experiment compared decays of neutral kaons to test whether CP symmetry held.
Wu experiment: The Wu experiment demonstrated parity violation in cobalt-60 beta decay in 1956. Its earlier discovery of parity violation changed the symmetry assumptions surrounding Cronin’s work.
Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix: The Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix describes how quark flavors mix in weak interactions. Its complex phase provides the Standard Model source of CP violation first detected in kaons.
Brookhaven National Laboratory: Brookhaven National Laboratory is a U.S. research center for particle and nuclear physics on Long Island, New York. Cronin and Fitch conducted their 1964 kaon experiment at Brookhaven.
K-short and K-long: K-short and K-long are neutral-kaon states with different lifetimes and characteristic decay modes. Their unexpectedly different decay behavior provided the signal of CP violation.

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