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Neutrino Masses and the Quest for Unification. K.S. Babu Oklahoma State University. Physics Seminar Wichita State University, Wichita, KS November 6, 2013. Cosmic Gall Neutrinos, they are very small. They have no charge and have no mass And do not interact at all.
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Neutrino Masses and the Quest for Unification K.S. Babu Oklahoma State University Physics Seminar Wichita State University, Wichita, KS November 6, 2013
Cosmic Gall Neutrinos, they are very small. They have no charge and have no mass And do not interact at all. The earth is just a silly ball To them, through which they simply pass, Like dustmaids down a drafty hall Or photons through a sheet of glass. They snub the most exquisite gas, Ignore the most substantial wall, Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass, Insult the stallion in his stall. And, scorning barriers of class, Infiltrate you and me! Like tall And painless guillotines, they fall Down through our heads into the grass. At night, they enter at Nepal And pierce the lover and his lass From underneath the bed—you call It wonderful; I call it crass. John Updike Telephone Poles and Other Poems, 1963
A Brief History of Neutrinos • Postulated by Pauli as a desperate measure to restore momentum and energy conservation in beta decay (1930) • Electron type neutrino discovered by Reines and Cowan in reactor experiments (1956) -- Nobel Prize in 1995 • Muon type neutrino produced in accelerators by Lederman, Schwartz, Steinberger et al (1962) – Nobel Prize in 1988 • LEP experiments measure N(nu) = 2.994 +-0.012 (1991-2002) • Neutrinos from the Sun detected by Davis et al (1968) – Nobel Prize in 2002 • Neutrinos from Supernova 1987A detected in US and Japan -- Koshiba, Nobel Prize in 2002 • Neutrino oscillations discovered in atmospheric neutrinos [IMB, Kamiokonde Hints (1988), Discovery by SuperKamiokande (1998)] • Solar neutrino deficit confirmed by various experiments and interpreted as evidence for neutrino oscillations (1968 –) • Reactor antineutrino oscillations discovered – Daya Bay (2012), RENO, DoubleChooz, T2K
Minkowski (1977) Yanagida (1979) Gell-Mann, Ramond, Slansky (1979) Mohapatra, Senjanovic (1980)
Neutrino mixing versus quark mixing Leptons Quarks Disparity a challenge for Quark-Lepton unified theories.
Neutrino Masses Probe the Scale of Unification of all Forces
Quantum Mechanics & Relativity Dirac’s Equation (1927)
Great Success of Quantum Electrodynamics e m e m e e+e-→+-
- + - - + + R - + Test charge + - + - + -
- + - - + + - + R + - + - + -
g g g q g g
Asymptotic freedom Gross, Wilczek, Politzer Nobel Prize, 2004
e, , W±, Z0 e, Symmetry Superstring Unification Energy 1019 GeV 1 GeV 102 GeV 1016 GeV uu d dd u
Spin = 0 Spin = 1/2 Spin = 0 Spin = 1/2 Spin = 1 Spin = 1/2
Structure of Matter Multiplets SO(10) Standard Model