
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