Spin-flavor oscillations of Dirac neutrinos in a plane electromagnetic wave

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Dirac neutrinos with magnetic moments undergo spin and flavor oscillations in a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave, providing exact solutions and analyzing transition probabilities relevant to astrophysical environments.

Contribution

It offers an exact solution to the Dirac-Pauli equation for neutrinos in an electromagnetic wave and formulates initial conditions for spin-flavor oscillations, advancing understanding of neutrino behavior in such fields.

Findings

Derived transition probabilities for spin and spin-flavor oscillations.

Analyzed oscillation channels for different magnetic moments.

Explored neutrino oscillations in neutron star electromagnetic fields.

Abstract

We study spin and spin-flavor oscillations of Dirac neutrinos in a plane electromagnetic wave with circular polarization. The evolution of massive neutrinos with nonzero magnetic moments in the field of an electromagnetic wave is based on the exact solution of the Dirac-Pauli equation. We formulate the initial condition problem to describe spin-flavor oscillations in an electromagnetic wave. The transition probabilities for spin and spin-flavor oscillations are obtained. In case of spin-flavor oscillations, we analyze the transition and survival probabilities for different neutrino magnetic moments and various channels of neutrino oscillations. As an application of the obtained results, we study the possibility of existence of $\nu_{e\mathrm{L}}\to\nu_{\mu\mathrm{R}}$ oscillations in an electromagnetic wave emitted by a highly magnetized neutron star. Our results are compared with findings of other authors.