Quantum dissipation in a neutrino system propagating in vacuum and in matter

Abstract

Considering the neutrino state like an open quantum system, we analyze its propagation in vacuum or in matter. After defining what can be called decoherence and relaxation effects, we show that in general the probabilities in vacuum and in constant matter can be written in a similar way, which is not an obvious result for such system. From this result, we analyze the situation where neutrino evolution satisfies the adiabatic limit and use this formalism to study solar neutrinos. We show that the decoherence effect may not be bounded by the solar neutrino data and review some results in the literature, in particular the current results where solar neutrinos were used to put bounds on decoherence effects through a model-dependent approach. We conclude explaining how and why these models are not general and we reinterpret these constraints.