Quantum field theory treatment of the neutrino spin-flavor precession in a magnetic field

Abstract

We study the spin-flavor precession of neutrinos in a magnetic field within the quantum field theory approach in which neutrinos are virtual particles. Neutrinos are taken to be Majorana particles having a nonzero transition magnetic moment. We derive the dressed propagators of the neutrino mass eigenstates exactly accounting for the magnetic field contribution. The matrix element and the transition probability for the spin-flavor precession are obtained in the approximation of the forwardly scattered charged leptons. The leading term in the transition probability is shown to coincide with the result of the standard quantum mechanical description of neutrino oscillations. We also discuss the quantum field theory contributions to the neutrino dressed propagators and demonstrate that these contributions result in a small correction to the transition probability. The case of charged leptons with arbitrary energies is considered.

arXiv comment20 pages, 5 pdf figures; paper is significantly revised, version to be published in Nucl.Phys.B

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