Previous Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureships

Non-accelerator neutrino oscillation experiments have provided strong evidence for the mixing of the three known neutrino states. Precision oscillation studies may hold the clue to understanding the matter- antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Recent experiments have measured the dominant mixing of neutrinos but the subdominant oscillation, the coupling of the electron neutrino flavor to the third mass eigenstate, has not been observed yet. Its corresponding mixing angle ϴ₁₃ is critical for exploring CP violation searches in the lepton sector and may be discovered by next- generation reactor neutrino oscillation experiments. Together, reactor and accelerator experiments will help determine the yet unknown oscillation parameters and search for CP violating effects in the lepton sector. These experiments will also search for sterile neutrino states and test the CPT theorem for neutrinos and their antiparticles. CP violation in the lepton sector and the observed neutrino mixing may lead to leptogenesis and account for the observed baryon asymmetry in the Universe. This talk will describe the physics potential of reactor and accelerator neutrino oscillation experiments and the path towards discovering CP violation in the lepton sector, including our recent studies towards a novel reactor neutrino oscillation experiment to measure ϴ₁₃. I will discuss the implications of leptonic CP violation and its role in the evolution of the early Universe.

Download Karsten's Slides for this talk (PDF format, 5.1 Meg)