Physics Colloquium

In the past two decades, the study of neutrinos, the lightest, yet most abundant of the elementary particles has revealed cracks in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The discovery of neutrino oscillations has opened up the intriguing possibility that asymmetries between neutrinos and anti-neutrinos could help shed light on the underlying mechanism responsible for the observed matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe. Many of the key discoveries and measurements of neutrino properties have utilized man-made sources of neutrinos produced by powerful particle accelerators and nuclear reactors. The historical development of man-made sources of neutrinos, and the corresponding neutrino detector technologies, is summarized. An overview of the current state-of-the-art neutrino experiments utilizing particle accelerators and powerful neutrino reactors will be presented. The goal of this next generation of terrestial neutrino experiments is to search for neutrino/anti-neutrino asymmetries.