Colloquium - Dr. Blair Jamieson

Fri. Sep. 25 12:30 PM - Fri. Sep. 25 01:20 PM
Location: 1L07

Dr. Blair Jamieson, University of Winnipeg

Quantum Adventures with Neutrinos

The neutrino was originally proposed by Pauli as a mass-less, weakly interacting particle that carried away some of the energy in a beta decay reaction, to conserve energy, and allow for the continuous beta energy spectrum. In order to see these ghostly particles physicists have built very large detectros to detect neutrinos from intense natural and man-made sources. With these detectors physicists have learned that neutrinos come in three flavours, have mass, and can quantum mechanically oscillate from one flavour to another. This talk will explore some of the interesting physics of these particles, the puzzles that have been discovered, and how some of these puzzles have been solved. Some of the recent results with beams of anti-neutrinos from the Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) neutrino experiment will be highlighted.