Role of neutrino mixing in accelerated proton decay

Abstract

The inverse beta decay of accelerated protons has been analyzed both in the laboratory frame (where the proton is accelerated) and in the comoving frame (where the proton is at rest and interacts with the Fulling-Davies-Unruh thermal bath of electrons and neutrinos). The equality between the two rates has been exhibited as an evidence of the necessity of Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect for the consistency of Quantum Field Theory formalism. Recently, it has been argued that neutrino mixing can spoil such a result, potentially opening new scenarios in neutrino physics. In the present paper, we analyze in detail this problem and we find that, assuming flavor neutrinos to be fundamental and working within a certain approximation, the agreement can be restored.