The start of things for Kamiokande: The Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment

Abstract

In 1980, detecting the evidence of the so-called Grand Unified Theory (GUT) became a major challenge for experimentalists. The GUT predicted that protons would decay, and M. Koshiba proposed the Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment (Kamiokande), which was originally conceived and designed for the detection of proton decay signals. This article describes the story of the Kamiokande experiment from the preparation stage to the observation of the first candidate events for proton decays.