2012/09/25 by W-Y. P. Hwang, Hwang, W-Y. Pauchy · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1209.5488
openalex publication_date 2012/09/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We ponder about neutrino oscillations; a particle without a clear identity, a neutrino of a given flavor in fact does not satisfy the Dirac equation (which is used to define the mass eigen-states and mass eigen-values). This alters the basic treatment of neutrino oscillations, in that the Dirac spinors are defined as the mass eigen-states while the flavor states can only be given as linear combinations of the mass eigen-states (of Dirac equations). Even though neutrino masses are tiny, the impacts of several neutrino masses in a single reaction or a single decay, such as possible violation of the energy-momentum conservation, should not be overlooked. Among those sources of oscillating neutrinos, we point out that the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR's) such as the proton of energy 1018 eV or higher, used to think of being rather stable, can capture, in the matter media, an electron to convert into an electron-like neutrino and a spectator neutron. This would be the most important neutrino source of the UHECR origin.