New Physics in Neutrino Oscillation: Nonunitarity or Nonorthogonality?

Abstract

Neutrino oscillation phenomenon is a definite evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) and high precision measurement of neutrino properties will certainly give us clue about what lies beyond the SM. In particular, precise measurements of the mixing matrix elements $U_{\alpha i}$ which relate the neutrino flavor $\alpha$ and mass $i$ eigenstates are crucial since new physics at scale beyond experimental reach can lead to a nonunitary $U$. This in turns results in nonorthogonal neutrino flavor states. How to calculate the oscillation probability in this scenario is an important theoretical issue that will be treated here. We show that probability constructed using theory of projection probability will ensure that the theory remains unitary in time evolution and the probabilities of neutrino of certain flavor being detected as all possible flavor states always sum up to unity. This result is crucial for discovery of new physics through neutrino oscillation phenomena.