open access publication

Article, 2024

Collective neutrino-antineutrino oscillations in dense neutrino environments?

Physical Review D, ISSN 2470-0010, 1550-7998, 1550-2368, 1089-4918, 2470-0029, Volume 109, 4, Page 043031, 10.1103/physrevd.109.043031

Contributors

Fiorillo, Damiano F. G. [1] Raffelt, Georg Gottfried 0000-0002-0199-9560 [2] Sigl, Günter 0000-0002-4396-645X [3]

Affiliations

  1. [1] University of Copenhagen
  2. [NORA names: KU University of Copenhagen; University; Denmark; Europe, EU; Nordic; OECD];
  3. [2] Max Planck Institute for Physics
  4. [NORA names: Germany; Europe, EU; OECD];
  5. [3] Universität Hamburg
  6. [NORA names: Germany; Europe, EU; OECD]

Abstract

The paradigm-changing possibility of collective neutrino-antineutrino oscillations was recently advanced in analogy to collective flavor oscillations. However, the amplitude for the backward scattering process νp1ν¯p2→νp2ν¯p1 is helicity suppressed and vanishes for massless neutrinos, implying that there is no off-diagonal refractive index between ν and ν¯ of a single flavor of massless neutrinos. For a nonvanishing mass, collective helicity oscillations are possible, representing de facto ν-ν¯ oscillations in the Majorana case. However, such phenomena are suppressed by the smallness of neutrino masses as discussed in the previous literature.

Keywords

Majorana, Majorana case, N-, Small, amplitude, cases, environment, flavor, flavor oscillations, helicity, helicity oscillations, index, literature, mass, massless neutrinos, n-n oscillations, neutrino masses, neutrino-antineutrino oscillations, neutrinos, nonvanishing mass, oscillations, phenomenon, possibilities, refractive index, smallness of neutrino masses

Funders

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  • European Commission
  • The Velux Foundations

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