Decoherence in neutrino oscillation between 3D Gaussian wave packets

There is renewed attention to whether we can observe the decoherence effect in neutrino oscillation due to the separation of wave packets with different masses in near-future experiments. As a contribution to this endeavor, we extend the existing formulation based on a single 1D Gaussian wave function to an amplitude between two distinct 3D Gaussian wave packets, corresponding to the neutrinos being produced and detected, with different central momenta and spacetime positions and with different widths. We find that the spatial widths-squared for the production and detection appear additively in the (de)coherence length and in the localization factor for governing the propagation of the wave packet, whereas they appear as the reduced one (inverse of the sum of inverse) in the momentum conservation factor. The overall probability is governed by the ratio of the reduced to the sum. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons .org /licenses /by /4 .0/). Funded by SCOAP3.

Automated summary

There is renewed attention on observing the decoherence effect in neutrino oscillation due to the separation of wave packets with different masses. This study extends the existing formulation to a 3D amplitude between two distinct Gaussian wave packets, explaining the production and detection of neutrinos with different central momenta, spacetime positions, and widths. The study finds that the spatial widths-squared add up in the (de)coherence length and localization factor, but appear as the reduced one in the momentum conservation factor.