When do neutrinos really oscillate Quantum mechanics of neutrino oscillations

Journal Article · Sun Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1991 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.44.3635· OSTI ID:5925528

Giunti, C; Lee, U W ^[1]; Kim, C W ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 (United States) Center for Theoretical Physics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151 (Korea)

The quantum mechanics of neutrino oscillations is reexamined by studying the propagation of a flavor neutrino described by a superposition of mass-eigenstate wave packets, {ital without} {ital making} {ital the} {ital usual} {ital relativistic} {ital assumption}. The space-dependent oscillation probability is derived by averaging over the propagation time. The time average leads to interesting factors in the oscillation probability, from which the coherence length and the bound for the size of the wave packets are derived. The coherence length is the distance beyond which neutrinos cease to oscillate, although a flavor change may still take place. It is also shown that if one of the mass eigenstates is nonrelativistic, it may dominate the constant flavor-changing probability.

• OSTI ID: 5925528
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States), Journal Name: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States) Vol. 44:11; ISSN PRVDA; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661100 -- Classical & Quantum Mechanics-- (1992-)
662430* -- Properties of Leptons-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COHERENCE LENGTH
COMPOSITE MODELS
DIMENSIONS
EIGENSTATES
FLAVOR MODEL
LENGTH
MASS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
NEUTRINO OSCILLATION
PARTICLE MODELS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
QUARK MODEL
WAVE PACKETS