Friday, January 25, 2002, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Prof. D. Wark, Oxford
Abstract:
Neutrinos were first
proposed by Wolfgang Pauli in the 1930's as a "desperate remedy" to the
apparent disappearance of energy and momentum in beta decay. In the
late
60's another problem arose: the observed flux of neutrinos from the Sun
was
significantly smaller than predicted. Another "desperate remedy" was
proposed - perhaps the neutrinos emitted from the Sun were changing from
one
type to another before reaching the Earth, and thereby evading the
experiments. After 30 years of effort this phenomenon, called neutrino
oscillations, has now been experimentally demonstrated. The talk will
discuss these experiments, focussing on recent results from the Sudbury
Neutrino Observatory, and talk about the significance and future of this
new
area of particle physics.