Van der Velde, Jack C.

Professor Jack van der Velde is Professor Emeritus in the Physics Department of the University of Michigan, as of 2003. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan in 1958. That year, he began teaching physics at the University of Michigan as an instructor, and continued teaching there for his entire career. His research focused on high energy physics, cosmic rays, proton decay, and neutrinos.

Professor van der Velde was co-spokesman for the IMB Project (University of California-Irvine, University of Michigan, Brookhaven National Laboratory), with Frederick Reines. The IMB Project searched for proton decay using an 8,000 metric ton cube of water and a Cherenkov detector, located in the Morton Salt Company Mines in Fairport Harbor, Ohio.

The purpose of the project was to measure the stability of the proton. They were trying to gather the first conclusive evidence of the quark-lepton interactions predicted by the grand unification theory. If protons decayed as predicted, the decay would result in fast moving particles, which would produce Cherenkov light that the sensors would detect.

The theoretical models predicting the stability of the proton were developed in the fall of 1978. By December 1978, plans for the IMB collaboration were forming, a process that continued through May 1979. At that time, the proposal was finished and applications were made for funding. The detector was constructed beginning in January 1980 and was ready to begin collecting data July 31, 1982. The detector was upgraded to IMB-3 (after a short-lived IMB-2 phase) that had four times the sensitivity, which began producing data in September 1986. The University of Michigan had to withdraw from the collaboration at the end of 1989 due to other experiment responsibilities. In March 1991, the IMB-3 detector sprung a fatal water leak, ending data collection after 10 years. Physicists continued to publish and analyze the data for several years, including physicists from the University of Michigan until 1995.

Funding for the project came from the United States Department of Energy, which is a significant source of funding for grand unification theory research projects. The IMB received their approval for funding November 28, 1979. To start the project, the IMB collaborators depended on funds approved by then vice-president Shapiro from the University of Michigan in July 1979, and some funding from the University of California-Irvine.

A major achievement of the IMB project was the detection of neutrinos from a supernova (SN1987a) in 1987. This was the first time neutrinos had been detected from a supernova.

Additional information on the project is available at Professor Jack van der Velde's website http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jcv/

From the guide to the Jack van der Velde papers, 1979-1994, 1985-1990, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)