School of Physics "Enrico Fermi"
Summer Courses 2008
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The existence of massive neutrinos has been investigated for several decades, but only in the last years the evidence that neutrinos change from one flavor to another provides the first strong indication that neutrinos have a mass: The conjecture of Bruno Pontecorvo that massive neutrinos undergo flavor oscillations has been finally demonstrated with great statistical significance by the experiments on solar, atmospheric, accelerator and reactor neutrinos.
Presently, neutrino oscillations are the only tool we have to uncover the world of the intrinsic properties of neutrinos. But oscillations, already, had led to a renewed interest on the question of the mass measurement, which appears now as an unavoidable step in the prosecution of scientific investigation in particle physics.
Several laboratory experiments and various observations in cosmology and astrophysics are planned in the close future to progress and provide new information on neutrino masses. Double beta decay experiments could shed the light on the question whether neutrinos are Majorana particles.
Previous discussions on non-oscillation search for neutrino masses (=neutrino mass measurement), include workshops organized for the perusal of small communities working on the subject or dedicated sessions (e.g, in the series of Neutrino or NOW conferences) to ensure a generic coverage of this topic among many others. Often, the various experimental teams collect time by time their own expertise and knowledge with a limited effort for a common vision of the problem.
We believe that with the new generation of experiments coming into operation, and in view of the fact that neutrino masses are the only laboratory indication of new physics beyond the standard model, we need to widen the awareness of the importance of these research themes, to contribute to the discussion of the present status, and to highlight the open goals still to be reached.
Objectives and Content of the Course:
Evaluate the perspectives of the various approaches to measure neutrino masses. Stimulate new contributions from a wider community to the neutrino mass measurement problem. Illustrate the importance of the various experiments. Open the minds towards the challenge of precise measurements and advanced detector technologies. Interpret the various results in a common theoretical framework. Collect advanced techniques in calculations. Offer the opportunity to enter frontier experiments or experimental teams. Highlight the open problems and the missing tools.
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Scientific Directory:
- Fernando Ferroni
Dipartimento di Fisica "G. Marconi", Università di Roma "Sapienza" (Italy)
- Francesco Vissani
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi-AQ (Italy)
Scientific Secretariat:
- Chiara Brofferio
Dipartimento di Fisica "G. Occhialini", Università di Milano Bicocca (Italy)
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