- Physics and Astronomy Colloquium
November 22, 2024 3:30 PM -
November 22, 2024 4:30 PM
PAIS 1100
- Host:
- Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine
- Presenter:
- Dr. Kevork Abazajian (UC Irvine)
- Video Recording
Neutrinos are the second most abundant known particle in the Universe, with a density just below that of the cosmic microwave background. Combining this with the minimal mass required by neutrino oscillations makes them as large of a contributor to the density of the Universe as all stars. This density, combined with their light particle mass, makes cosmological expansion history and the growth of structure a very sensitive probe of the nature of the properties of neutrinos: their interactions, their absolute mass-scale, and whether there are extra light “sterile” neutrinos. In this talk, I will review the role of neutrinos in the standard cosmological model, present recent findings within this framework, and explore the intriguing implications of non-standard neutrino properties suggested by current data.