Study of quantum decoherence at Protvino to ORCA experiment

TL;DR

This paper investigates quantum decoherence effects in neutrino oscillations over the long baseline of the P2O experiment, using an open quantum system approach to set bounds on decoherence parameters and assess impacts on experimental sensitivities.

Contribution

It introduces a framework to model and constrain environmental decoherence in neutrino oscillations for the P2O experiment, considering energy-dependent decoherence parameters.

Findings

Bounds on decoherence parameters for different models

Impact of decoherence on neutrino mass ordering sensitivity

Impact of decoherence on CP violation sensitivity

Abstract

Protvino to ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) (P2O) is an upcoming neutrino oscillation experiment with a very long baseline of 2595 km. Due to the substantial baseline, this experiment provides a unique opportunity to study the earth matter effects over very large distances. This makes it a suitable experiment to investigate the environmental decoherence in neutrino oscillations, where the neutrino system could interact with a stochastic environment and lead to a loss in the coherence of neutrino states. In this work, we consider an open quantum system framework to simulate the neutrino oscillations in P2O experiment and obtain bounds on the decoherence parameters in different phenomenological models. We assume that the decoherence parameter $\Gamma$ depends on neutrino energy $E_\nu$ as $\Gamma_{ij}(E_\nu) = \Gamma_{0} (\frac{E_\nu}{E_0})^n$. Further, we use these bounds to study the effect on the neutrino mass ordering sensitivity and CP violation sensitivity of P2O experiment.