Spreading of wave packets for neutrino oscillations in vacuum

TL;DR

This paper investigates how wave packet dispersion affects neutrino oscillation probabilities in vacuum, revealing a suppression factor of 1/L^2 due to dispersion effects in different regimes.

Contribution

It provides a field theory analysis of wave packet spreading effects on neutrino oscillations, including nearly degenerate masses and third-order energy expansion.

Findings

Oscillation probabilities are suppressed by 1/L^2 due to dispersion.

Dispersion effects are significant in both transversal and longitudinal regimes.

The study extends understanding of wave packet effects in neutrino physics.

Abstract

The effects originated in dispersion with time on spreading of wave packets for the time-integrated two-flavor neutrino oscillation probabilities in vacuum are studied in the context of a field theory treatment. The neutrino flavor states are written as superpositions of neutrino mass eigenstates which are described by localized wave packets. This study is performed for the limit of nearly degenerate masses and considering an expansion of the energy until third order in the momentum. We obtain that the time-integrated neutrino oscillation probabilities are suppressed by a factor $1/L^2$ for the transversal and longitudinal dispersion regimes, where $L$ is the distance between the neutrino source and the detector.