Neutrino Wave Packet Propagation in Gravitational Fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutrino wave packets propagate in a rotating gravitational field, revealing gravitational effects on oscillation length, helicity flips, and potential methods to determine neutrino masses from astrophysical observations.

Contribution

It introduces a gravitational phase approach to analyze neutrino propagation in Lense-Thirring spacetime, highlighting new effects of rotation on neutrino oscillations and mass measurements.

Findings

Neutrino oscillation length is affected by gravitational corrections.

Stellar rotation can induce neutrino helicity flips.

Neutrino masses could be inferred from rotational energy shifts in neutron stars.

Abstract

We discuss the propagation of neutrino wave packets in a Lense-Thirring space-time using a gravitational phase approach. We show that the neutrino oscillation length is altered by gravitational corrections and that neutrinos are subject to helicity flip induced by stellar rotation. For the case of a rapidly rotating neutron star, we show that absolute neutrino masses can be derived, in principle, from rotational contributions to the mass-induced energy shift, without recourse to mass generation models presently discussed in the literature.