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Neutrinos and Their Oscillations: The Long and Short View

Speaker Prof. Jennifer Thomas
Affiliation Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London
Date January 24, 2019 (Thursday)
Time 3:30 p.m.
Venue Room 522, 5/F, Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building, HKU

Abstract

Neutrino Oscillations have provided a new insight into the properties of neutrinos since their discovery almost 20 years ago. There are a number of experiments presently providing new results pointing to a future direction in the field. One fundamental and overarching difficulty associated with any kind of measurements of neutrinos is that they only interact with the weak interaction, making their observation rather rare. This leads to very long wait times for results and the need for larger and larger detectors which eventually break the bank. It is time for a paradigm shift in the way neutrino physics is carried out, without the need for 1000 people for each experiment, sums of money that take your breath away and detectors that are so small they need 20 years to make the next fundamental step. I will give an introduction to the physics, the recent results in the field and then talk about an alternative future where we can make measurements quickly with huge detectors at a fraction of the cost of presently planned experiments.

Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the seminar.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend.