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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