Neutrino Mass and Oscillation

Abstract

The question of neutrino mass is one of the major riddles in particle physics. Recently, strong evidence that neutrinos have nonzero masses has been found. While tiny, these masses could be large enough to contribute significantly to the mass density of the universe. The evidence for nonvanishing neutrino masses is based on the apparent observation of neutrino oscillation -- the transformation of a neutrino of one type or "flavor" into one of another. We explain the physics of neutrino oscillation, and review and weigh the evidence that it actually occurs in nature. We also discuss the constraints on neutrino mass from cosmology and from experiments with negative results. After presenting illustrative neutrino mass spectra suggested by the present data, we consider how near- and far-future experiments can further illuminate the nature of neutrinos and their masses.

43 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Vol. 49 (1999)

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• Fock States of Flavor Neutrinos are Unphysical
• Constraining the 0ν2β matrix elements by nuclear structure observables
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• Constraints on both bilinear and trilinear R-parity violating couplings from neutrino laboratories and astrophysics data
• Reconstruction of the Neutrino Mixing Matrix and Leptonic Unitarity Triangles from Long-baseline Neutrino Oscillations
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• Can the Lepton Flavor Mixing Matrix Be Symmetric?
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• Fake CPT Violation in Disappearance Neutrino Oscillations
• Neutrinoless double beta decay in four-neutrino models
• Sum rules of four-neutrino mixing in matter
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