Width of a beta-decay-induced antineutrino wave packet

Abstract

The time evolution of a neutrino is dependent on its initial properties at creation including flavor, energy, and wavepacket size. There exists no solid theoretical prediction for the latter property in the context of nuclear beta decay, despite the importance of this process for the past, present, and future of neutrino experimentation. In this paper, we provide a quantitative prediction for the size of a beta-decay-induced electron antineutrino wavepacket by treating the parent nucleus decaying to an entangled antineutrino-recoil system using the formalism of open quantum systems. Of central importance is the delocalization scale of the parent particle. We construct a systematic description of the hierarchy of localizing entanglements that provides an unambiguous statement of the relevant localization scale, found to be closely related to the diameter of the parent nucleus (e.g. $\sim$5-6~fm for beta-decaying fission daughters) and as low as the typical nucleon-nucleon correlation distance ($\sim$1~fm). Inside a nuclear reactor, for example, this translates to initial electron antineutrino wavepacket widths in the $\sigma_{\nu,x}\sim10\mathrm{-}400$~pm range for $E_{\overline{\nu}_e}>1.8$~MeV, with dependencies on decaying nucleus size, the emitted antineutrino energy, and the kinematics of the recoiling system. Wavepacket sizes in this envelope do not produce an observable effect on oscillation probability in foreseeable reactor experiments in the standard three-neutrino model, including JUNO which is expected to be sensitive to $\sigma_{\nu,x}\lesssim3$~pm.