2004/11/20 by Andre de Gouvea, de Gouvea, Andre
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/0411274
62 pages, 17 figures
arxiv created 2004/11/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
I discuss, in a semi-pedagogical way, our current understanding of neutrino physics. I present a brief history of how the neutrino came to be ``invented'' and observed, and discuss the evidence that led to the recent discovery that neutrinos change flavor. I then spend some time presenting mass-induced neutrino flavor change (neutrino oscillation), and how it pieces all the neutrino puzzles except for the LSND anomaly, which is also briefly discussed. I conclude by highlighting the importance of determining the nature of the neutrinos, i.e., are they Dirac or Majorana fermions.