Sobre o evento:
At the highest experimental resolution achieved so far, matter consists of quarks (from which the constituents of the atomic nucleus, protons and neutrons, are made) and leptons (such as the electrons of the atom and the elusive neutrinos). Creation of matter has only been seen together with an equivalent amount of antimatter, for example in (single) beta decay where a neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. Yet the universe seems to be made of much more matter than antimatter. Can matter be created without antimatter?
I will present the effective-field theoretical arguments that suggest the answer is yes, thanks to the rare process of neutrinoless double-beta decay, when two neutrons inside a heavy nucleus transform into two prótons and two electrons, without any antineutrinos. The interaction that gives rise to this process also endows neutrinos with a type of mass first proposed by Majorana 90 years ago. I will discuss the progress and remaining steps needed to reach the tremendously challenging goal of calculating the frequency of this decay and extracting neutrino properties once it is observed.
Minibiografia do palestrante:
Ubirajara van Kolck is Director of the European Centre for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas (ECT*), Directeur de recherche at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and Professor of Physics at the University of Arizona. Fellow of the American Physical Society, chair of the APS Group on Few-Body Physics, and member of Academia Europaea, among other honorary titles. Awarded with: Prix Paul Langevin de la Société Française de Physique (2015), Henry and Phyllis Koffler Prize in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity of the University of Arizona (2019), Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society (2020).
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