Physics Colloquium: The Brave nu World

The Department of Physics is pleased to welcome Professor André de Gouvêa for an in-person colloquium on Thursday, February 16, 2023. de Gouvêa is the Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University. After receiving his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1999, Prof. de Gouvêa completed postdoctoral research fellowships at CERN and Fermilab. He is an APS and AAAS fellow, and is the Chair Elect of DPF (2023), his term as Chair will begin in 2024.

Abstract:

Neutrinos are the most abundant matter particles in the universe. They are also the least understood matter particles. We only recently learned they have mass (not well measured), we don’t know if neutrinos and antineutrinos are different particles and we don’t know how neutrino masses fit in our understanding of fundamental physics. I provide an overview of the world of neutrinos, concentrating on what we have learned about them over the last couple of decades, what else we would like to learn and why neutrino physics may play a big role in our understanding of fundamental particle physics.