Organized by: Prof. Lu Lu

Events on Tuesday, February 17th, 2015

Faculty Candidate Seminar

Using kaons to unlock the secrets of the neutrino

Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall

Speaker: Joshua Spitz, MIT

Abstract: More than 80 years after its proposed existence, the neutrino remains
largely mysterious and elusive. Despite this fact, we are closing in
on answers to some of the big questions surrounding the "little
neutral one". After an introduction to the neutrino and neutrino mass,
I will discuss two of the most important open questions in particle
physics and cosmology today: (1) How many neutrinos are there? and (2)
Is there a difference between matter neutrinos and antimatter
neutrinos?

When a charged-kaon decays at rest, it usually produces a
monoenergetic (236 MeV) muon neutrino. Recently, this unique neutrino has been
identified as an important tool in helping to eventually answer these
big questions. I will discuss the "kaon decay-at-rest" concept for
neutrino physics and present a set of experiments that will be able to
perform the relevant measurements in the next few years.

Host: Dasu

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