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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Neutrino quantum decoherence engendered by neutrino decay to photons, familons and gravitons

Alexey Lichkunov, Konstantin Stankevich, Alexander I. Studenikin, Maxim Vialkov

Published Dec 1, 2021• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We developed the previously proposed theoretical framework based on the quantum field theory of open systems applied to neutrinos. Within this framework we have considered the neutrino evolution and neutrino flavour oscillations taking into account for the decay of a heavier neutrino state to a lighter neutrino state and to a massless particle, namely photons, dark photons, axion-like particles and gravitons. We have shown that the neutrino evolution accounting for the decays will be governed by the Lindblad master equation, in which the decoherence parameters are proportional to the neutrino decay rate.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/2156/1/012240

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Abstract We developed the previously proposed theoretical framework based on the quantum field theory of open systems applied to neutrinos. Within this framework we have considered the neutrino evolution and neutrino flavour oscillations taking into account for the decay of a heavier neutrino state to a lighter neutrino state and to a massless particle, namely photons, dark photons, axion-like particles and gravitons. We have shown that the neutrino evolution accounting for the decays will be governed by the Lindblad master equation, in which the decoherence parameters are proportional to the neutrino decay rate.
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We discuss the effect of environmental decoherence on matter-effective neutrino oscillation probabilities. Decoherence is a phenomenon observed in systems interacting with the environment. We treat the neutrinos as an open quantum system and by using the Lindblad Master equation we study the evolution of neutrino states. The matter effect is incorporated for neutrinos passing through matter with the help of the Cayley-Hamilton formalism. In this work, we have developed a general algorithm that attempts to solve the Lindblad Master Equation to compute the neutrino oscillation probabilities in presence of environmental decoherence. We extensively validate the algorithm and explore how environmentally induced decoherence can potentially affect the oscillation probabilities, particularly in the long-baseline sector.
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We consider a quantum field theory (QFT) model of neutrino oscillations in vacuum that attempts to take into account that the neutrino source particle and the neutrino detection particle both interact with their respective environments by collisions. Our model is minimal in a twofold sense. Firstly we simply assume that neutrino production and detection take place in between collisions in time intervals ΔtΔtΔt and τττ, respectively. Secondly, we only introduce the two wave packets that are absolutely necessary which are those of the neutrino source and the neutrino detection particle. Within this model we find that, for all practical purposes, there are no decoherence effects in the neutrino oscillation amplitude and oscillations occur in space not in time. Moreover, our model leads to the correct time correlation between neutrino production and detection and to a factorization of the event rate of the compound neutrino production--detection process into decay rate, oscillation probability and detection cross section.