Neutrino flavor oscillations and spin rotation in matter and electromagnetic field

Abstract

We obtain a relativistically covariant wave equation for neutrinos in dense matter and electromagnetic field, which describes both flavor oscillations and neutrino spin rotation. Using this equation we construct a quasi-classical theory of these phenomena. We obtain the probabilities of arbitrary spin-flavor transitions assuming the external conditions to be constant. We demonstrate that the resonance behavior of the transition probabilities is possible only when the neutrino flavor states cannot be described as superpositions of the mass eigenstates. We discover that a resonance, which is similar to the Mikheev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein resonance, takes place for neutrinos in magnetic field due to the transition magnetic moments. This resonance gives an opportunity to determine, whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana particles.