It has been almost 90 years since the neutrino was first proposed. While we have learned a great deal about it in that time, this enigmatic particle continues to puzzle us to this day. Extremely hard to detect, with a tiny mass and rather unusual properties, neutrinos have given us a first glance of what lies beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics and, more recently, they have opened a new window to explore phenomena in the Universe. In this colloquium, I outline our current neutrino knowledge, the potential for discoveries and the implications they might have to the general physics landscape. I pay particular attention to the role of two fascinating neutrino experiments, IceCube and Canada’s own SNO+, as well as future detection technologies that could change the way we search for these elusive particles.
I did my undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics in Mexico at Tec de Monterrey. As part of my program I had the opportunity of going to Sweden in an exchange program and get involved in research with the IceCube group at Uppsala University. After finishing my degree in Mexico I started a PhD in experimental physics in DESY Zeuthen / Humboldt University, in Germany, where I focused my research on neutrino oscillations with IceCube DeepCore. I continued there as a postdoc as well, before moving to Canada as a Banting Fellow in 2016 to join SNO+ and IceCube at the University of Alberta. In 2018 I took up my current position as faculty, still at the UofA, where I continue to pursue data analysis with SNO+ and IceCube, as well as a potential new neutrino telescope off the coast of Canada.