Nuclear Physics Seminar

``Discoveries involving neutrinos are reshaping the foundations of our understanding of nature. Two Nobel Prizes in physics recognized the detection of neutrinos coming from the Sun and from exploding stars. More recent underground neutrino experiments have excited scientific community with definite observations that neutrinos of different types transform into one another, implying that they have mass. Neutrinos have moved from obscurity onto center stage in astrophysics and in particle physics’’ National Research Council, NAS 2003 I will describe the joint Michigan Tech and The University of Texas anti-neutrino mass experiment( NEXTEX ) that will resolve the electron anti-neutrino mass to at least 0.5 eV, by measuring the endpoint energy spectrum of the beta electrons from molecular tritium. The knowledge of the neutrino mass scale has significant impact on astrophysics and cosmology. Because the universe contains a huge number of neutrinos, their mass could be a significant fraction of the total mass of the universe. The neutrino masses could determine whether the universe will continue expanding or eventually collapse; so an unexpected additional mass could change current predictions of the fate of the universe. This seminar is a story about the pitfalls and the glory of the great experiment. NEXTEX : The University of Texas at Austin, Michigan Tech. University, University of Nebraska, Lincoln Brendais University, Sonoma College