Neutrino Oscillations and Non-Hermitian Quantum Mechanics

In this dissertation we firstly present a brief review of the Standard Model of particle physics, focussing on aspects of the model that prove most relevant in the context of explaining the observed oscillation of neutrinos. The phenomenology of neutrino oscillations is then introduced, and different possible extensions to the Standard Model that would allow for non-zero neutrino masses, thereby allowing for the observed neutrino oscillations, are discussed. After introducing the PT -symmetric formulation of quantummechanics, we then turn to the so-called Model 8 solution of the PT -symmetric Dirac equation found by Jones-Smith et al., and discuss its potential relevance to the neutrino oscillation problem.