Neutrino. History of a unique particle

Abstract

Neutrinos are the only fundamental fermions which have no electric charges. Because of that neutrinos have no direct electromagnetic interaction and at relatively small energies they can take part only in weak processes with virtual $W^{\pm}$ and $Z^{0}$ bosons (like $\beta$-decay of nuclei, inverse $\beta$ process $\bar\nu_{e}+p\to e^{+}n$, 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.