On the flavor/mass dichotomy for mixed neutrinos: a phenomenologically motivated analysis based on lepton charge conservation in neutron decay

Abstract

Flavor/mass dichotomy} for mixed fields is one of the most controversial issues in Quantum Field Theory. In this work we approach the problem by considering mixing of neutrinos and computing the transition amplitude for the paradigmatic neutron $\beta$-decay $n\,\rightarrow\, p \,+\,e^ \,+\,\barν$. Calculations are developed by utilizing the following different representations of neutrino states: \emph{i}) Pontecorvo states, \emph{ii}) mass states and \emph{iii}) exact QFT flavor states, which are defined as eigenstates of the flavor charge. As a guiding principle, we invoke the conservation of lepton charge in the interaction vertex, which is fundamentally inbuilt into the Standard Model at tree level. In the short-time limit, we show that the only fully consistent scenario is that based on QFT states, whereas the other two frameworks contradict the underlying theory. This result provides a crucial step towards understanding the rôle of neutrino mixing in weak decays and contributes to elucidate the flavor/mass controversy in QFT.

16 pages, accepted for publication in EPJ Plus

References in corpus (21)

• Entanglement in neutrino oscillations
• Neutrinos from Supernovae as a Trigger for Gravitational Wave Search
• Neutrino mixing as a source of dark energy
• Entanglement and Many-Body effects in Collective Neutrino Oscillations
• Neutrinos in curved spacetimes: particle mixing and flavor oscillations
• Wave packet approach to quantum correlations in neutrino oscillations
• Relativistic Modified Newtonian Dynamics from String Theory?
• Neutrino flavor oscillations without flavor states
• Quantum-Gravity Decoherence Effects in Neutrino Oscillations: Expected Constraints from CNGS and J-PARC
• q-generalized Tsallis thermostatistics in Unruh effect for mixed fields
• On the beta-decay of the accelerated proton and neutrino oscillations: a three-flavor description with CP violation
• Nonextensive Tsallis statistics in Unruh effect for Dirac neutrinos
• Non-abelian gauge structure in neutrino mixing
• On the role of the rotations and Bogoliubov transformations in neutrino mixing
• Optical simulation of neutrino oscillations in binary waveguide arrays
• Intrinsic flavor violation for massive neutrinos
• Aspects of gravitational decoherence in neutrino lensing
• Flavor vacuum entanglement in boson mixing
• On flavor violation for massive and mixed neutrinos
• A note on oscillating neutrino states in quantum field theory
• Flavor Neutrino Oscillations and Time-Energy Uncertainty Relation

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Saez-Ballester gravity in Kantowski-Sachs Universe: a new reconstruction paradigm for Barrow Holographic Dark Energy
• Kaniadakis entropy-based characterization of IceCube PeV neutrino signals
• Time-energy uncertainty relation for neutrino oscillations: historical development, applications and future prospects
• Neutrino decoherence and violation of the strong equivalence principle