2003/12/20 by Harry J. Lipkin, Lipkin, Harry J.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/0312292
4 pages
arxiv created 2003/12/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The apparent symmetry between energy and momentum found in all covariant descriptions of neutrino oscillations is destroyed in the neutrino detector, a quantum mechanical system described by a density matrix diagonal in energy but not in momentum. The off diagonal matrix elements between states of different momenta and the same energy produce the coherence and interference between mass eigenstates having the same energy and different momenta that produce oscillations.