Theory of neutrino detection: flavor oscillations and weak values

Autor(es)

Porto-Silva, Yago P. ^{[1, 2]} ; de Oliveira, M. C. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Fis Gleb Wataghin, Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] Max Planck Inst Kernphys, D-69117 Heidelberg - Germany

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C; v. 81, n. 4 APR 2021.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

We revisit the theory of neutrino oscillations and describe it through the formalism of weak measurements with postselection. It is well understood that due to the large momentum uncertainty in detection, there is no collapse of the neutrino wavefunction in the momentum or energy basis, and the mass eigenstates are detected coherently. Here we show that postselection, which projects the system to a final flavor state, deforms the system wavefunction in such a way that the momentum detected is not the expectation value of the neutrino mass eigenstates momenta, but the corresponding weak value. We use the weak values to describe the intermediate state in the oscillation process, avoiding problems in defining probability currents for particle states with mass superposition. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 17/05515-0 - Novas interações em experimentos de longbaseline
• Beneficiário: Yago Philippe Porto Silva
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Doutorado Direto
• Processo FAPESP: 19/22961-9 - Coerência e transformações de sabor em neutrinos de supernova
• Beneficiário: Yago Philippe Porto Silva
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Exterior - Estágio de Pesquisa - Doutorado Direto