NEUTRINO PHYSICS: A SELECTIVE OVERVIEW

Abstract

Neutrinos in the Standard Model of particle physics are massless, neutral fermions that seemingly do little more than conserve 4-momentum, angular momentum, lepton number, and lepton flavour in weak interactions. In the last decade conclusive evidence has demonstrated that the Standard Model's description of neutrinos does not match reality. We now know that neutrinos undergo flavour oscillations, violating lepton flavour conservation and implying that neutrinos have non-zero mass. A rich oscillation phenomenology then becomes possible, including matter-enhanced oscillation and possibly CP violation in the neutrino sector. Extending the Standard Model to include neutrino masses requires the addition of new fields and mass terms, and possibly new methods of mass generation. In this review article I will discuss the evidence that has established the existence of neutrino oscillation, and then highlight unresolved issues in neutrino physics, such as the nature of three-generational mixing (including CP-violating effects), the origins of neutrino mass, the possible existence of light sterile neutrinos, and the difficult question of measuring the absolute mass scale of neutrinos.