Neutrino masses and oscillations

Abstract

A report on neutrino masses, mixing and oscillations, made in Dubna at the symposium dedicated to 100 years of the Rutherford's discovery of atomic nucleus, is presented. We start with the hypothesis of neutrino which was proposed by W. Pauli in December 1930 in order to solve some problems of nuclei (the problem of spin of $^{7}N_{14}$ and other nuclei and the problem of continuous $\beta$-spectra). After that we consider the theory of massless two-component neutrino and first ideas of neutrino oscillations which were put forward by B. Pontecorvo in Dubna in 1957-58. The present status of neutrino mixing and oscillations is briefly reviewed. The seesaw mechanism of the generation of small Majorana neutrino masses is discussed and neutrinoless double $\beta$-decay of nuclei is considered. A possibility to probe the Majorana mass mechanism of the $0\nu\beta\beta$-decay is discussed.