INTERREGIONAL CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES
XII Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics
Moscow State University, August 25-31, 2005
Speakers of the Round Table Discussion on
“Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics”
Christian Cardall (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Alexander Dolgov (INFN-Ferrara & ITEP, Moscow)
Victor Semikoz (IZMIRAN, Troitsk)
Alexey Starobinsky (Landau Institute, Moscow)
Raymond Volkas (University of Melburne)
Valery Zhukov (Karlsruhe University & SINP, Moscow State University)
Convener: Alexander Studenikin (Moscow State University)
Memorandum of the Round Table discussion on
“Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics”
The progress in particle physics comes from both the high energy
frontier and precision experiments. This applies to accelerator and
non-accelerator physics. In the last years, field like neutrino physics, astroparticle physics and cosmology have had an spectacular
development.
One may anticipate that these clues to the knowledge of nature will
develop more along the XXI century, particular when taking into account the
longer time periods involved in the construction of higher energy facilities.
There has been important progress in neutrino and astroparticle
physics achieved during the last several years:
·
The non-vanishing
neutrino mass and flavour violation has been observed
in neutrino oscillation experiments.
·
The validity of the
Standard Solar Model has also been proven.
·
The non-zero neutrino
mass can have an important impact on cosmology, in particular, for our
understanding of the baryon asymmetry of the universe. On the other hand, the
upper boundary of the sum of three neutrino masses can now be constrained on
the level of the order of 1 eV from cosmology.
·
Observations of tritium beta-decay
have lowered the neutrino upper mass limit to the level of 2.1 eV.
·
Double beta decay
experiments have reached a sensitivity ~ (0.5 – 1) eV
for effective Majorana mass of the neutrino.
World-wide recognition of the obtained results has been evidenced by two
Nobel Prizes which have been recently awarded for research in neutrino and astroparticle physics.
Further progress in the study of the fundamental properties of neutrinos
will open the window to a new physics. Application of these studies could also
play a very important role in our understanding of the inner structure of
stellar cores as well as of the early stages of evolution of the universe. Studies of geo neutrinos also open promising
possibilities for the future.
More accurate measurements of neutrino characteristics will make further
progress in the field possible. Our conference also focused on the need to
train specialized manpower in this field for the future.