Geometric imprint of CP violation in two flavor neutrino oscillations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that CP violation effects in two-flavor neutrino oscillations become geometrically observable in media with varying density, contrasting with the insensitivity in constant density scenarios.

Contribution

It reveals that CP violating phases can manifest as geometric phases in adiabatically changing media, extending previous topological phase concepts.

Findings

CP violation effects are geometric in varying density media.

In constant density, CP phases can be gauged away and are unobservable.

The topological phase becomes a geometric phase with CP violation in changing densities.

Abstract

In vacuum or constant density matter, the two flavor neutrino oscillation formulae are insensitive to the presence of CP violating phases owing to the fact that the CP phase can be gauged away. In sharp contrast to the above case, we show that the CP violating phases can not be gauged away in presence of adiabatically changing background density accompanied by varying CP phases. We present a pure geometric visualization of this fact by exploiting Pancharatnam's prescription of cyclic quantum projections. Consequently the topological phase obtained in Phys. Rev. D 79, 096013 (2009) can become geometric if CP violation occurs in a varying density medium.