Neutrino Physics Research

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, yet they interact so weakly with matter that detecting them at all requires massive, carefully shielded instruments like the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, KamLAND, and Daya Bay. A central discovery of recent decades is that neutrinos oscillate — they spontaneously shift between three known "flavors" as they travel, which implies they carry small but nonzero masses, a fact unaccounted for in the original Standard Model of particle physics. Researchers are now working to pin down the precise values of those masses, determine whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles (a question addressed through searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay), and investigate whether a hypothetical fourth "sterile" neutrino exists that would mix with the known three. Accurate models of neutrino behavior also feed directly into astrophysical problems, since the dynamics of core-collapse supernovae depend sensitively on how neutrinos transport energy out of a dying star.

Works

90,972

Total citations

771,586

Keywords

Neutrino Flavor TransformationNeutrino OscillationsDouble-Beta DecaySupernova SimulationsSterile NeutrinosSolar Neutrinos