Probing the weak force with neutrinos

MAR 01, 1975

The study of high‐energy neutrino scattering is providing answers—some of them surprising—to some basic questions concerning the weak interactions.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3068874

David B. Cline

Alfred K. Mann

Carlo Rubbia

Interest in neutrino physics has surged up recently, partly because the “little neutral ones” are being groomed for the job (for which they alone are qualified) of probing the interiors of stars. Among elementary particles the neutrino is unique. This is because—as far as we know—it alone interacts with other particles only through the Fermi, or weak, interaction. In this article we will discuss how recent experiments, with new accelerators and detectors, such as the ones at CERN and Fermi Lab, have shed new light on some of the fundamental questions regarding the weak interactions. We will review the recent discoveries of neutral weak currents that conserve strangeness, parity violation and point‐like neutrino collisions, as well as some of the implications of these experiments to particle theory.

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More about the Authors

David B. Cline. Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Alfred K. Mann. Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Carlo Rubbia. Professor of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.