Physics Department Colloquia |
Events During the Week of May 1st through May 8th, 2011
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
- No events scheduled
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
- No events scheduled
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
- No events scheduled
Friday, May 6th, 2011
- Last Day of Class
- First Results from the T2K Neutrino Oscillation Experiment
- Time: 4:00 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall (coffee at 3:30 pm)
- Speaker: Scott Oser, University of British Columbia
- Abstract: The past decade has shown us that, contrary to expectations, neutrinos have both masses and mixings between flavors. In a study of contrasts, their masses are ridiculously small, but the rates at which neutrinos change from one flavor to another are remarkably large. T2K is a new experiment to study what happens to a beam of neutrinos as it passes through the Honshu island in Japan. By shoot a beam of muon neutrinos from Japan's Pacific coast to the Super-Kamiokande detector 295km away, T2K hopes to observe muon neutrinos turning into electron neutrinos. This measurement is the cornerstone of a long-term effort to determine if neutrinos and anti-neutrinos behave identically, and may ultimately address the question of why our universe is made of matter and not anti-matter. I will present the first oscillation results from T2K and report on the current status of the experiment, including recovery efforts after the March 11 earthquake.
- Host: Heeger