Spacetime evolution of lepton number densities and wave packet-like effects for neutrino flavor and chiral oscillations in quantum field theory

Abstract

We present a formulation of lepton family numbers, based on quantum field theory, for neutrino oscillation phenomenology that can be applied to nonrelativistic and relativistic energies for neutrinos. It is formulated for both types of neutrinos, Dirac and Majorana. The formulation is constructed as the time evolution of a lepton family number density operator. Then, the time evolution of the lepton family number density operator becomes dependent on the mass and new features appear. The expectation value of the density operator is evaluated for the initial state with a Gaussian distribution for the momentum amplitude. This enables us to study wave packet-like decoherence effects. We show in the nonrelativistic regime, the type of neutrino mass are distinguishable even under the presence of wave packet-like decoherence effects.