LABORATORI NAZIONALI DEL GRAN SASSO

SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT

On June 20, 2006 at 14:30, Prof. P.K. Raina from Indian Institute of Technology of Kharagpur, India will give a seminar entitled:

Neutrino Physics: double beta decay perspective

Abstract

Neutrino physics is one of the present day thrust areas in experimental as well as theoretical physics. The terrestrial and extraterrestrial searches for neutrino mass through the study of atmospheric, solar, reactor and supernova neutrino sources have finally succeeded in establishing that neutrinos have mass. The present experimental evidences regarding the mass strongly suggest physics beyond the standard model of particles. Neutrinoless double beta decay (0n2b)processes have a great potential to explore some of the fundamental questions associated with neutrino physics beyond the Standard Model, which is believed to be the correct description of all fundamental particles and their interactions except gravitation. 0n2b is perhaps the only experiment that will tell us about the true nature of neutrino - whether it is a Dirac or Majorana particle. The 0n2b will provide the information on absolute effective mass of the neutrinos. The 0n2b decay mode will tell us

if the total lepton number, one of the fundamental conserved quantities of the Standard Model, is violated. In addition, this would constrain several parameters of the supersymmetric models, composite models, left-right symmetric models, several other extensions of the standard models, more severely than any of the proposed next generation colliders.

(“B. Pontecorvo” room)