TY - JOUR
T1 - Neutrino flavor conversion in a neutrino background
T2 - Single- versus multi-particle description
AU - Friedland, Alexander
AU - Lunardini, Cecilia
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - In the early Universe, or near a supernova core, neutrino flavor evolution may be affected by coherent neutrino-neutrino scattering. We develop a microscopic picture of this phenomenon. We show that coherent scattering does not lead to the formation of entangled states in the neutrino ensemble and therefore the evolution of the system can always be described by a set of one-particle equations. We also show that the previously accepted formalism overcounts the neutrino interaction energy; the correct one-particle evolution equations for both active-active and active-sterile oscillations contain additional terms. These additional terms modify the index of refraction of the neutrino medium, but have no effect on oscillation physics.
AB - In the early Universe, or near a supernova core, neutrino flavor evolution may be affected by coherent neutrino-neutrino scattering. We develop a microscopic picture of this phenomenon. We show that coherent scattering does not lead to the formation of entangled states in the neutrino ensemble and therefore the evolution of the system can always be described by a set of one-particle equations. We also show that the previously accepted formalism overcounts the neutrino interaction energy; the correct one-particle evolution equations for both active-active and active-sterile oscillations contain additional terms. These additional terms modify the index of refraction of the neutrino medium, but have no effect on oscillation physics.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.68.013007
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.68.013007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0042387918
SN - 1550-7998
VL - 68
JO - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
JF - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
IS - 1
ER -