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arXiv:2604.09776

Visible Neutrino Decay As An Open Quantum System

Joachim Kopp, George A. Parker

hep-phhep-exquant-phSubmitted Apr 10, 2026• Announced Apr 14, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Decays of heavier neutrino mass eigenstates into lighter ones, while very slow in the Standard Model, can be significantly enhanced in scenarios with more than three neutrino flavours, or in models with new ultra-light particles such as Majorons. A full theoretical description is challenging due to the intricate interplay between oscillations and decay, interference between different decay channels, and the possibility of multi-step decay cascades. In this paper, we develop a fully general description of arbitrarily complex systems of oscillating and decaying neutrinos using methods from the theory of open quantum systems. Notably, we demonstrate how such systems can be implemented using the Lindblad master equation, the Liouvillian superoperator, as well as Kraus operators. The last two methods eschew the need for solving a differential equation, thereby showing superior numerical performance.

Comments
13 pages, 6 figures

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Neutrinos lose coherence as they propagate, which leads to the fading away of oscillations. In this work, we model neutrino decoherence induced in open quantum systems from their interaction with the environment. We first present two different models in the quantum mechanical framework, in which the environment is modeled as forced harmonic oscillators with white noise interactions, or two-level systems with stochastic phase kicks. We then look at the decoherence process in the quantum field theoretic framework induced by elastic scatterings with environmental particles. The exponential decay is obtained as a common feature for all models, which shows the universality of the decoherence processes. We discuss connections to the GKSL master equation approach and give a clear physical meaning of the Lindblad operators. We demonstrate that the universality of exponential decay of coherence is based on the Born-Markov approximation. The models in this work are suitable to be extended to describe real physical processes that could be non-Markovian.
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It has been firmly established that neutrinos change their flavour during propagation. This feature is attributed to the feature that each flavour eigenstate is a superposition of three mass eigenstates, which propagate with different frequencies. This picture, although widely accepted, is wrong in the simplest approach and requires quite sophisticated treatment based on the wave-packet description within quantum field theory. In this communication we present a novel, much simpler explanation and show that oscillations among massive particles can be obtained in a natural way. We use the framework of quantum mechanics with time being a physical observable, not just a parameter.