The ghostly neutrino is the most abundant identified matter particle in the universe, yet it is unknown to most people. Trillions pass through our body every second. Experiments carried out over the past half century have slowly revealed that neutrinos have three types, or flavors, and have the strange quantum property that they can transform from one flavor into another; a dramatic discovery recognized by several Nobel prizes in physics. In the next generation of experiments this “identity shifting” property of neutrinos will allow us to investigate the source of matter-antimatter asymmetries —a step toward unraveling the mystery of matter generation in the early Universe.
I will give an overview of the fundamental properties of the neutrino, including the phenomenon of flavor oscillations, and the key experiments that have led us to our current understanding. I will end with a description of future experiments with a focus on the US- hosted international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE)based on the Liquid Argon TPC technology, pioneered by the ICARUS experiment presently taking data at Fermilab.
Alberto Guglielmi, Luca Stanco, Filippo Varanini