Thursday, November 24, 2005, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Z. Berezhiani, University L'Aquila
Abstract:
There may exist a parallel mirror sector of particles and interactions,
an exact duplicate of our particle sector. Mirror particles interact
with ordinary ones via gravity, and perhaps via other superweak forces.
A most remarkable possibility is related to the fact that the neutral
ordinary particles, elementary (photons, neutrinos) as well as composite
(neutrons, pions, Kaons, hydrogen atom), can have a mixing with their
mirror counterparts.
Surprisingly, the present experimental and astrophysical limits allow the neutron - mirror neutron oscillation time in vacuum to be much smaller than the neutron lifetime, which can be directly searched in laboratory "table-top" experiments, and can also have profound astrophysical implications, most remarkably for the propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays. We shortly discuss also other cosmological implications of mirror sector: primordial baryogenesis, dark matter, Machos, etc.