Neutrino Mixing and Oscillations in Quantum Field Theory

Abstract

We show that the generator of field mixing transformations in Quantum Field Theory induces a non trivial structure in the vacuum which turns out to be a coherent state, both for bosons and for fermions, although with a different condensate structure. The Fock space for mixed fields is unitarily inequivalent to the Fock space of the massive (free) fields in the infinite volume limit. As a practical application we study neutrino mixing and oscillations. A new oscillation formula is found where the oscillation amplitude is depressed, with respect to the usual one, by a factor which is momentum and mass dependent. In the relativistic limit, the usual formula is recovered. We finally discuss in some detail phenomenological features of the modified oscillation formula.