JOINT PARTICLE SEMINAR



Date: Wednesday,  11 May 2005   Time: 3:00 p.m.

Place: 4135 Frederick Reines Hall

Speaker: Ann Nelson, University of Washington

Title: Neutrinos as a Window into the Dark

Abstract: An ongoing revolution in physics is the rise of precision cosmology, which has provided convincing evidence for the existence of two new forms of energy, known as "Dark Energy" and "Dark Matter". Together these mysterious forms of energy currently comprise 96% of the total energy in the universe. Another exciting new development is the advent of precision neutrino oscillation physics. In this talk I explain why neutrino oscillations are potentially a particularly sensitive probe of the physics of the dark sector. I describe how new physics could allow the neutrino mass to vary in a nonstandard manner, and describe a speculative link between neutrinos and dark energy.

Host: J. Feng