On flavor violation for massive and mixed neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper examines the quantum field theory description of mixed neutrinos, revealing that commonly used Pontecorvo states are not eigenstates of flavor charges, which affects lepton charge conservation in weak interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent QFT framework for flavor states of neutrinos, clarifying their proper definition and implications for flavor violation.

Findings

Pontecorvo states are not eigenstates of flavor charges.

Using proper flavor eigenstates preserves lepton charge conservation.

The work clarifies the theoretical description of neutrino flavor in weak interactions.

Abstract

We discuss flavor charges and states for interacting mixed neutrinos in QFT. We show that the Pontecorvo states are not eigenstates of the flavor charges. This implies that their use in describing the flavor neutrinos produces a violation of lepton charge conservation in the production/detection vertices. The flavor states defined as eigenstates of the flavor charges give the correct representation of mixed neutrinos in charged current weak interaction processes.