Flavor oscillations driven by mass differences for a Dirac neutrino in an MIT-bag cavity

Edward R. Floyd

Massimo Blasone A, Francesco Giacosa, L. A. Smaldone +1 more

We discuss the role of finite time and energy uncertainty in the quantum field theory description of neutrino oscillations. In order to to achieve this goal, we review the flavor Fock-space approach and the time-energy uncertainty relation in the Mandelstam--Tamm form, expressed as a flavor-energy uncertainty relation. Such relation, together with the inequivalence of mass and flavor neutrinos Fock spaces, puts a lower bound on neutrino energy uncertainty. Similar considerations can be derived by a perturbative computation of flavor transitions, which employs the Dirac picture to compute flavor transition probability. Remarkably, both flavor Fock space and interaction picture approach lead to the same oscillation probability, within the approximation adopted in the perturbative calculation.

Massimo Blasone, Peter A. Henning, Giuseppe Vitiello

Victor A. S. V. Bittencourt, Massimo Blasone A, Gennaro Zanfardino

Abstract In addition to flavor oscillations, Dirac neutrinos also undergo the so-called chiral oscillations, a consequence of the free-particle dynamics under the Dirac equation. Such a transition between different chiralities affect the flavor transitions, but also can generate non-trivial correlations between the internal degrees of freedom of the particle. In this paper, we show that the state of a massive oscillating neutrino produced by weak interaction process, is an hyperentangled state, in which flavor, chirality, and spin exhibit non-trivial correlations. Using complete complementarity relations, we show that both chiral and flavor oscillations redistribute correlations and coherence in time among different partitions of the system. In a similar way, we consider a spin entangled lepton-antineutrino pair and show that there is a dynamical redistribution of spin-spin entanglement into correlations and coherence between the other degrees-of-freedom. Our analysis provides a complete characterization of the quantum correlations involved in lepton-antineutrino pairs and in single particle neutrino evolution, and provides a further insight on possible routes to interpret and measure chiral oscillations.

Subhadip Bouri, Abhishek Kumar Jha, Subhashish Banerjee

The quantum speed limits (QSLs) set fundamental lower bounds on the time required for a quantum system to evolve from a given initial state to a final state. In this work, we investigate C P violation and the mass ordering problem of neutrino oscillations in matter using the QSL time as a key analytical tool. We examine the QSL time for the unitary evolution of two- and three-flavor neutrino states, both in vacuum and in the presence of matter. Two-flavor neutrino oscillations are used as a precursor to their three-flavor counterparts. We further compute the QSL time for neutrino state evolution and entanglement in terms of neutrino survival and oscillation probabilities, which are experimentally measurable quantities in neutrino experiments. A difference in the QSL time between the normal and inverted mass ordering scenarios, for neutrino state evolution as well as for entanglement, under the effect of a C P violation phase is observed. Our results are illustrated using the length scales and energies of ongoing long-baseline accelerator neutrino experiments such as T2K, NOvA, and the upcoming DUNE experiment. Notably, three-flavor neutrino oscillations in constant matter density exhibit faster state evolution across all these neutrino experiments in the normal mass ordering scenario. Additionally, we observe fast entanglement suppression in DUNE assuming a normal mass ordering.

Harry J. Lipkin