Nuclear- and Particle Physics Seminar
Speaker: Prof. Giorgio GRATTA
Stanford University, Stanford, USA
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Time: 16.45 h
Place: ETH Hönggerberg, HPK D24
Title: First Results from the KamLAND Experiment
Abstract:
The study of solar and atmospheric neutrinos has led us, in the last
decade, to the tentative conclusion that neutrino oscillations do
occur in nature. Such oscillations would imply that neutrinos have a
finite mass, a fact that is not contemplated by the minimal version
of the standard model. Remarkably, all the information on these
effects we had till now was based on the observation of neutrinos
from extraterrestrial sources, making it difficult to separate
neutrino physics from other types of effects.
In the last 10 months a new experiment, KamLAND, has measured
anti-neutrinos produced by a large number of nuclear reactors in
Japan, with the goal of trying to reproduce the alleged phenomenon of
solar neutrino oscillation in what we could call a "laboratory
setting" (admittedly with a very large laboratory ....). We will
report on our first findings and discuss whether or not our data is
consistent with the interpretation that neutrinos have a finite mass.
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