Eur. Phys. J. H 38, 345–404 (2013)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/e2012-20068-9

Review

Neutrino. History of a unique particle

¹ Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, 141980, Russia
² TRIUMF 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 2A3 Canada

^a e-mail: bilenky@gmail.com

Received: 26 December 2011
Received in final form: 24 October 2012
Published online: 14 December 2012

Abstract

Neutrinos are the only fundamental fermions that have no electric charge. Because of that neutrinos have no direct electromagnetic interaction and at relatively small energies they can take part only in weak processes with virtual W^± and Z⁰ bosons (like β-decay of nuclei, inverse β process , etc.). Neutrino masses are many orders of magnitude smaller than masses of charged leptons and quarks. These two circumstances make neutrinos unique, special particles. The history of the neutrino is very interesting, exciting and instructive. We try here to follow the main stages of the neutrino history starting from the Pauli proposal and finishing with the discovery and study of neutrino oscillations.