The quantum measurement approach to particle oscillations

TL;DR

This paper develops a rigorous quantum measurement framework for particle oscillations, predicting deviations from standard formulas and addressing anomalies like LSND and MiniBooNE.

Contribution

It introduces a novel measurement-theoretic formalism that treats particle arrival times as quantum observables, providing more accurate oscillation predictions.

Findings

Predicts an anomalous oscillation wavelength at low energy

Differs from standard oscillation formula by a factor of 2 at high energy

Addresses and resolves key issues in existing theoretical models

Abstract

The LSND and MiniBoone seeming anomalies in neutrino oscillations are usually attributed to physics beyond the Standard model. It is, however, possible that they may be an artefact of the theoretical treatment of particle oscillations that ignores fine points of quantum measurement theory relevant to the experiments. In this paper, we construct a rigorous measurement-theoretic framework for the description of particle oscillations, employing no assumptions extrinsic to quantum theory. The formalism leads to a non-standard oscillation formula; at low energy it predicts an `anomalous' oscillation wavelength, while at high energy it differs from the standard expression by a factor of 2. The key novelties in the formalism are the treatment of a particle's time of arrival at the detector as a genuine quantum observable, the theoretical precision in the definition of quantum probabilities, and the detailed modeling of the measurement process. The article also contains an extensive critical review of existing theoretical treatments of particle oscillations, identifying key problems and showing that these are overcome by the proposed formalism.