Neutrino oscillations as a "which-path" experiment

TL;DR

This paper explains neutrino oscillations using basic quantum mechanics, highlighting the importance of the quantum system's correlations and how localization affects neutrino state coherence, confirming the necessity of neutrino mass differences.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum mechanics alone can explain neutrino oscillations by analyzing the system as a correlated quantum entity, emphasizing the role of localization and coherence.

Findings

Neutrino oscillations require neutrino mass differences.

Localization leads to momentum uncertainty but preserves energy coherence.

Quantum correlations between source and detector are essential for understanding oscillations.

Abstract

The role of simple quantum mechanics in understanding neutrino oscillation experiments is pointed out by comparison with two-slit and Bragg scattering experiments. The importance of considering the beam and the detector as a correlated quantum system is emphasized. Quantum mechanics alone shows that the difference observed in the same neutrino detector at Super-Kamiokande between upward and downward going neutrinos requires the existence of a neutrino mass difference. The localization of the source and detector in space in the laboratory system for long times leads to an uncertainty in the momentum but not of the energy of the neutrino and to coherence between states having different momenta and the same energy and not between states with different energies.