Physical Society Colloquium

What Can We Learn About Neutrinos At SNOLAB?

Alain Bellerive

Carleton University

For more than 30 years, physicists have been baffled by a basic physics problem known as the "Solar Neutrino Problem" which contradicts age-old theories about the physics of the Sun and how it works. Neutrinos, generally believed to be without mass, are fundamental particles in nature. Scientists have discovered a deficit between the number of neutrinos detected from the Sun and the number they expect to detect based on laboratory measurements. Consequently, they are convinced that either their understanding of the energy-producing processes in the Sun is seriously defective or neutrinos comprise as yet unidentified properties, most notably, mass. In fact, massive neutrinos can undergo a quantum mechanical transformation called neutrino oscillation. This presentation will focus on the description of neutrino mixing and the determination of the absolute neutrino mass scale. Recent results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) show that solar neutrinos transform from one type to other types for which previous terrestrial detectors had limited sensitivity. Precise measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters and future prospects for the development of the next-generation of double-beta decay experiment at SNOLab will be reviewed.