Friday, June 24, 2005, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
C. Gonzalez-Garcia, SUNY
Abstract:
The neutrino, a very light and weakly interacting particle, was
"invented'' by Pauli to save particle physicist from the embarrassment
of energy non-conservation in radioactive decays. Despite its modest
entrance in the particle world, the neutrino has revealed itself as the
messenger of the most exciting news of the last decade in particle
physics: there is Physics Beyond the Standard Model. All this thanks to
the quantum-mechanical phenomenon of flavour oscillations which is
intrinsically connected to the question of neutrino mass.
In this colloquium I will describe the phenomenology associated with neutrino oscillations and I will review the evidence for neutrino mass from solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments, as well as from the most important laboratory searches for neutrino oscillations. I will also briefly discuss the main implications for theory.