Abstract

We consider neutrino oscillations in the T2K experiment using a new quantum field-theoretical approach to the description of processes passing at finite space-time intervals. It is based on the Feynman diagram technique in the coordinate representation, supplemented by modified rules of passing to the momentum representation. Effectively this leads to the Feynman propagators in the momentum representation being modified, while the rest of the Feynman rules remain unchanged. The approach does not make use ofwave packets, the initial and final particle states are described by plane waves, which essentially simplifies the calculations. The oscillation fading out due to momentum distribution of the initial particles is taken into account. The obtained results reproduce the predictions of the standard description and confirm that the far detector position corresponds to the first minimum for muon production probability and the first maximum for electron production probability.

Highlights

  • Neutrino oscillations are a widely discussed and experimentally confirmed phenomenon, which is very important for particle physics

  • The plane wave QM description is not consistent since the production of states without definite masses violates energy-momentum conservation. This problem is circumvented in the framework of the QM and QFT descriptions in terms of wave packets, but the calculations of amplitudes and probabilities become very complicated

  • The modified S-matrix approach in the framework of quantum field theory allows us to consistently obtain the expression for the probability of a neutrino oscillation process, which includes a process of virtual neutrino production in the source, its propagation over macroscopic distances and a registration process in the detector

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Summary

Introduction

Neutrino oscillations are a widely discussed and experimentally confirmed phenomenon, which is very important for particle physics To describe this phenomenon either the quantum-mechanical approach in terms of plane waves or wave packets [1,2,3] or the quantum field-theoretical approach in terms of wave packets [3,4,5] are usually used. The idea of the novel approach is to adapt the standard S-matrix formalism for describing processes passing at finite space-time intervals by modifying the rules of transition from the coordinate representation to the momentum representation in the framework of the Feynman diagram technique, so that these rules reflect the experimental conditions. In which the neutrinos are detected due to scattering by nuclei of 16O, which in the simplified consideration by means of the impulse approximation may be reduced to the scattering at free neutrons, and by electrons

Quasielastic neutrino scattering by neutron
Neutrino scattering by an electron
Numerical integration
Conclusion
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