Encyclopedia
Neutrino oscillation is a
quantum mechanical phenomenon whereby a
neutrino created with a specific lepton flavor can later be measured to have a different flavor. The probability of measuring a particular flavor for a neutrino varies periodically as it propagates. Neutrino oscillation is of theoretical and experimental interest as observation of the phenomenon implies that the neutrino has a non-zero mass, which is not part of the original
Standard Model of
particle physics.
Observations
A great deal of evidence for neutrino oscillations has been collected from many sources, over a wide range of neutrino energies and with many different detector technologies.
Solar neutrino oscillation
The first experiment to detect the effects of neutrino oscillations was Ray Davis's Homestake Experiment, in which he observed a deficit in the flux of
solar neutrinos using a chlorine-based detector. This gave rise to the
Solar neutrino problem. Many subsequent radiochemical and water
Cerenkov detectors confirmed the deficit, but neutrino oscillations weren't conclusively identified as the source of the deficit until the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory provided clear evidence of neutrino flavor change.
Solar neutrinos have energies below 20 MeV and travel an astronomical unit between the source and detector. At energies above 5 MeV, solar neutrino oscillation actually takes place in the sun through a resonance known as the MSW effect, a different process from the vacuum oscillations described later in this article.
Atmospheric neutrino oscillation
Large detectors such as IMB, MACRO, and Kamiokande II observed a deficit in the ratio of the flux of muon to electron flavor atmospheric neutrinos. The
Super Kamiokande experiment provided a very high precision measurement of neutrino oscillations in an energy range of hundreds of MeV to a few TeV, and with a baseline of the radius of the
Earth.
Reactor neutrino oscillations
Many experiments have searched for oscillations of electron anti-neutrinos produced at
nuclear reactors. A high precision observation of reactor neutrino oscillation has been made by the
KamLAND experiment. Neutrinos produced in nuclear reactors have energies similar to solar neutrinos, a few MeV. The baselines of these experiments have ranged from tens of meters to over 100km.
Beam neutrino oscillations
Neutrinos beams produced at a
particle accelerator offer the greatest control over the neutrinos being studied. Many experiments have taken place which study the same neutrino oscillations which take place in atmospheric neutrino oscillation, using neutrinos with a few GeV of energy and several hundred km baselines. The MINOS experiment recently announced that it observes consistency with the results of the K2K and Super-K experiments. The MINOS result has not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal but it is expected that their results will be published soon.
The controversial observation of beam neutrino oscillation at the LSND experiment is currently being tested by MiniBooNE. Results from MiniBooNE are expected in the fall of 2006.
Theory, formally
Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix
It is generally accepted that neutrino oscillations are due to a mismatch between the flavor and mass
eigenstates of neutrinos. The relationship between these eigenstates is given by
,
where
- is a neutrino with definite flavor. a = e , or .
- is a neutrino with definite mass. i = 1, 2, 3.
- represents a complex conjugate .
represents the
Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix . It is the equivalent of the CKM matrix for
quarks. If this matrix were the identity matrix, then the flavor eigenstates would be the same as the mass eigenstates. However, experiment shows that it is not.
When the standard three neutrino theory is considered, the matrix is 3×3. If only two neutrinos are considered, a 2×2 used. If one or more sterile neutrinos are added it is 4×4 or larger. In the 3×3 form, it is given by:
where , , etc. The phase factors a
1 and a
2 are non-zero only if neutrinos are Majorana particles , and do not enter into oscillation phenomena regardless. If
neutrinoless double beta decay occurs, these factors influence its rate. The phase factor d is non-zero only if neutrino oscillation violates
CP symmetry. This is expected, but not yet observed experimentally. If experiment shows this 3x3 matrix to be not unitary, a sterile neutrino or some other new physics is required.
Propagation and interference
Since are mass eigenstates, their propagation can be described by plane wave solutions of the form
,
where
- quantities are expressed in natural units
- is the energy of the particle,
- is the time from the start of the propagation,
- is the 3-dimensional momentum,
- is the current position of the particle relative to its starting position
The energy depends on the mass
m by
,
where the approximation is appropriate in the ultrarelativistic limit. This limit applies in all practical cases to neutrinos. Their mass is less than 1eV and in all experiments their energies are at least 1MeV, so the Lorentz factor ? is greater than 10
6 in all cases. Using also
t ˜ L, where
L is the distance travelled, the wavefunction becomes:
,
Eigenstates with different masses propagate at different speeds. The heavier ones lag behind while the lighter ones pull ahead. Since the mass eigenstates are combinations of flavor eigenstates, this difference in speed causes interference between the corresponding flavor components of each mass eigenstate. Constructive
interference causes it to be possible to observe a neutrino created with a given flavor to change its flavor during its propagation. The probability that a neutrino originally of flavor a will later be observed as having flavor ß is
This is more convieniently written as
,
where . The phase that is responsible for oscillation is often written as
,
where 1.267 is unitless. In this form, it is convenient to plug in the oscillation parameters since:
- The mass differences, ?m2, are known to be on the order of 1eV2
- Oscillation distances, L, in modern experiments are on the order of kilometers
- Neutrino energies, E, in modern experiments are typically on order of GeV.
If there is no
CP-violation , then the second sum is zero.
Two neutrino case
The above formula is correct for any number of neutrino generations. Writing it explicitly in terms of mixing angles is extremely cumbersome if there are more than two neutrinos that participate in mixing. Fortunately, there are several cases in which only two neutrinos participate significantly. In this case, it is sufficient to consider the mixing matrix
Then the probability of a neutrino changing its flavor is
Or, using
SI units and the convention introduced above
This formula is often appropriate for discussing the transition ?
µ ? ?
t in atmospheric mixing, since the electron neutrino plays almost no role in this case. It is also appropriate for the solar case of ?
e ? ?
x, where ?
x is a superposition of ?
µ and ?
t. These approximations are possible because the mixing angle ?
13 is very small and because two of the mass states are very close in mass compared to the third.
Theory, graphically
It may be easier to understand the process of neutrino oscillation if it is presented with pictures instead of equations. This is easiest to do if only two types of neutrinos are considered. Here is the initial state of the neutrino, a plane wave of a single pure flavor :
This flavor state is a combination of mass states:
However, each mass state is also made up of flavor states. The second flavor state could represent the tau neutrino:
Notice that if the two flavor 1 curves are added together, the original full wave is reproduced. On the other hand, if the flavor 2 curves are added, they cancel each other completely. Now, each of the mass 1 components travel slower than each of the mass 2 components, so over time they lag behind:
If, at this later time, the corresponding flavor states are added together, it is no longer the case that only flavor 1 is non-zero. Now there is less flavor 1 and a non-zero amount of flavor 2:
The probability of observing a flavor is equal to the square of the
amplitude of its wave. As time goes on, the heights of the resulting flavor waves will change periodically. This is the
oscillation. The mixing angle controls how big this oscillation is. If the angle is maximal , then the probability oscillates from 100% for the first flavor to 100% for the second. If the angle is smaller, then the first flavor's probability never goes to zero, but rather oscillates between 100% and some intermediate value.
The oscillation of three or more neutrino flavors can also be visualized this way. However, if there is
CP-violation, not all waves will start in phase as is always the case when there are only two neutrinos.
Two neutrino probabilities
In the approximation where only two neutrinos participate in the oscillation, the probability of oscillation follows a simple pattern:
The blue curve shows the probability of the original neutrino retaining its identity. The red curve shows the probability of conversion to the other neutrino. The maximum probability of conversion is equal to . The frequency of the oscillation is controlled by .
Three neutrino probabilities
If three neutrinos are considered, the probability for each neutrino to appear is somewhat complex. Here are shown the probabilties for each initial flavor, with one plot showing a long range to display the slow "solar" oscillation and the other zoomed in to display the fast "atmospheric" oscillation. The oscillation parameters used here are consistent with current measurements, but since some parameters are still quite uncertain, these graphs are only qualitatively correct in some aspects. These values were used:
Observed values of oscillation parameters
For atmospheric neutrinos , oscillations become visible for neutrinos travelling several hundred km, which means neutrinos that reach the detector from below the horizon.
From atmospheric and
solar neutrino oscillation experiments, it is known that two mixing angles of the MNS matrix are large and the third is smaller. This is in sharp contrast to the CKM matrix in which all three angles are small and hierarchically decreasing. Nothing is known about the CP-violating phase of the MNS matrix.
If the neutrino mass proves to be of Majorana type , it is possible that the MNS matrix has more than one phase.
Origins of neutrino mass
The question of how neutrino masses arise has not been answered conclusively. In the Standard Model of particle physics, fermions only have mass because of interactions with the Higgs field . These interactions involve both left- and right-handed versions of the fermion . However, only left-handed neutrinos have been observed so far.
Neutrinos may have another source of mass through the Majorana equation. This mechanism only applies for electrically-neutral particles since otherwise it would allow particles to turn into anti-particles, which would violate conservation of electric charge.
The smallest modification to the Standard Model, which only has left-handed neutrinos, is to allow these left-handed neutrinos to have Majorana masses. The problem with this is that the neutrino masses are implausibly smaller than the rest of the known particles , which, while it does not invalidate the theory, is not very satisfactory.
The next simplest addition would be to add right-handed neutrinos into the Standard Model, which interact with the left-handed neutrinos and the Higgs field in an analogous way to the rest of the fermions. These new neutrinos would interact with the other fermions solely in this way, so are not phenomenologically excluded. Still, the problem of the disparity of the mass scales remains.
See-saw mechanism
The most popular solution currently is the
seesaw mechanism, where right-handed neutrinos with very large Majorana masses are added. If the right-handed neutrinos are very heavy, they induce a very small mass for the left-handed neutrinos, which is proportional to the inverse of the heavy mass.
If it is assumed that the neutrinos interact with the Higgs field with approximately the same strength as electrons do , the heavy mass should be close to the
GUT scale. Note that, in the Standard Model there is just one fundamental mass scale and all masses have to originate from this one.
The apparently innocent addition of right handed neutrinos has the effect of adding new mass scales, completely unrelated to the mass scale of the Standard Model. Thus, heavy right handed neutrinos look to be the first real glimpse of physics beyond the Standard Model. It is interesting to note that right handed neutrinos can help to explain the origin of matter through a mechanism known as leptogenesis.
Other sources
There are other ideas for the origin of neutrino mass, such as
R-parity violating
supersymmetry, which proposes that the masses for the neutrinos come from interactions with squarks and sleptons, rather than the Higgs field. However, these interactions are normally excluded from theories as they come from a class of interactions that lead to unacceptably rapid proton decay , do not help to understand why neutrinos are so light and are not able to provide a cold dark matter candidate. Still, these theories have not been ruled out yet.
References
- M.C. Gonzalez-Garcia, Y. Nir, "", Reviews of Modern Physics 75 p.345-402.
See also
External links
