6
R. N. Mohapatra
field of neutrino science as a serious field is a testament to human ingenuity
and scientific prowess. The technical developments that have occurred have
taken the later part of twentieth century and the early part of the twenty first
by storm. The more we learn about this tiny particle and its interactions with
the universe of particles, the more insight we gain into the inner workings that
led to the creation of the universe as we know today. And more likely, it would
tell what is in store for us in the far future.
A word about the title of the book: the universe started out as a cosmic soup
of hot plasma of quarks and leptons—and it is gently (or often not so gently)
guided through various phases till it reached the stage of what we see today,
which is a vastly more complex and ordered system. A major actor that helped
the universe in reaching its current state is the neutrino. Although, it must
be made clear that the neutrinos had nothing to do with how the universe
began—at least, nobody suspects so. The fate of the universe, however, would
have been very different if this particle had not been part of the drama and
if it behaved differently from what we know about its behavior today. Very
simply put, we would not be here. In that sense the story of the evolution of
the Cosmos as we know it is in large part the story of the neutrino.
The book is organized as follows: Part I of the book describes some of the
background in which the intellectual birth and growth of the neutrino story
occurs. The many laws and particles known before the idea of the neutrino
appeared are summarized to help set the background for the understanding
of the neutrino story that follows. The second part deals with the dramatic
way the idea of the neutrino appears on the scene and where, starting from
the idea of the particle to deep skepticism about its existence to its final
discovery in a laboratory experiment. This part also includes the most recent
developments in the field which have established that the neutrino has a tiny
mass, contradicting decades of belief that it is massless, the later idea being
an integral part of the successful standard model of forces and particles. In
Part III, I discuss what the implications and future prospects are for the field
following the transformational neutrino discoveries of the past two decades. I
outline some scenarios for physics beyond the standard model of forces and
matter implied by the neutrino mass discovery and its possible connection to
the dark matter of the universe, another hot topic in physics and astronomy
today. Part IV deals with two speculative ideas of the anthropic principle, i.e.
an alternative approach to understanding why some or all of things are the way
they are and what the future holds for the universe given what we know about
the laws of nature currently.
R. N. Mohapatra
field of neutrino science as a serious field is a testament to human ingenuity
and scientific prowess. The technical developments that have occurred have
taken the later part of twentieth century and the early part of the twenty first
by storm. The more we learn about this tiny particle and its interactions with
the universe of particles, the more insight we gain into the inner workings that
led to the creation of the universe as we know today. And more likely, it would
tell what is in store for us in the far future.
A word about the title of the book: the universe started out as a cosmic soup
of hot plasma of quarks and leptons—and it is gently (or often not so gently)
guided through various phases till it reached the stage of what we see today,
which is a vastly more complex and ordered system. A major actor that helped
the universe in reaching its current state is the neutrino. Although, it must
be made clear that the neutrinos had nothing to do with how the universe
began—at least, nobody suspects so. The fate of the universe, however, would
have been very different if this particle had not been part of the drama and
if it behaved differently from what we know about its behavior today. Very
simply put, we would not be here. In that sense the story of the evolution of
the Cosmos as we know it is in large part the story of the neutrino.
The book is organized as follows: Part I of the book describes some of the
background in which the intellectual birth and growth of the neutrino story
occurs. The many laws and particles known before the idea of the neutrino
appeared are summarized to help set the background for the understanding
of the neutrino story that follows. The second part deals with the dramatic
way the idea of the neutrino appears on the scene and where, starting from
the idea of the particle to deep skepticism about its existence to its final
discovery in a laboratory experiment. This part also includes the most recent
developments in the field which have established that the neutrino has a tiny
mass, contradicting decades of belief that it is massless, the later idea being
an integral part of the successful standard model of forces and particles. In
Part III, I discuss what the implications and future prospects are for the field
following the transformational neutrino discoveries of the past two decades. I
outline some scenarios for physics beyond the standard model of forces and
matter implied by the neutrino mass discovery and its possible connection to
the dark matter of the universe, another hot topic in physics and astronomy
today. Part IV deals with two speculative ideas of the anthropic principle, i.e.
an alternative approach to understanding why some or all of things are the way
they are and what the future holds for the universe given what we know about
the laws of nature currently.