A new parametrization of the neutrino mixing matrix for neutrino oscillations

Abstract

In this paper we study three active neutrino oscillations, favored by recent data from SuperK and SNO, using a new parametrization of the lepton mixing matrix $V$ constructed from a linear combination of the unit matrix $I$, and a hermitian unitary matrix $U$, that is, $V = \cos\theta I + i\sin \theta U$. There are only three real parameters in $V$ including the parameter $\theta$. It is interesting to find that experimental data on atmospheric neutrino dictates the angle $\theta$ to be $\pi/4$ such that the $\nu_\mu$ and $\nu_\tau$ mixing is maximal. The solar neutrino problem is solved via the MSW effect with a small mixing angle, with $U$ depending on one small parameter $\epsilon$. The resulting mixing matrix with just two parameters ($\theta$ and $\epsilon$) predicts that the oscillating probabilities for $\nu_e\to \nu_\mu$ and $\nu_e \to \nu_\tau$ to be equal and of the order $2\epsilon^2 = (0.25\sim 2.5)\times 10^{-3}$. The measurement of CP asymmetries at the proposed Neutrino Factories would also provide a test of our parametrization.