Flavor entanglement in neutrino oscillations in the wave packet description

Abstract

The wave packet approach to neutrino oscillations provides an enlightening description of quantum decoherence induced, during propagation, by localization effects. Within this approach, we show that a deeper insight into the dynamical aspects of particle mixing can be obtained if one investigates the behavior of quantum correlations associated to flavor oscillations. By identifying the neutrino three-flavor modes with (suitably defined) three-qubit modes, the exploitation of tools of quantum information theory for mixed states allows a detailed analysis of the dynamical behavior of flavor entanglement during free propagation. This provides further elements leading to a more complete understanding of the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, and a basis for possible applicative implementations. The analysis is carried out by studying the distribution of the flavor entanglement; to this aim, we perform combined investigations of the behaviors of the two-flavor concurrence and of the logarithmic negativities associated with specific bipartitions of the three flavors.