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Exploring Quantumness at Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiments

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-01-23 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment Quantum Physics

Abstract

Violations of classicality can be probed through measurements performed on a system at different times, as proposed by Leggett and Garg. Specifically, violations of Leggett-Garg inequalities suggest the presence of quantum effects in macroscopic systems. Long-baseline neutrino experiments provide some of the longest available propagation distances over which such tests can be performed. Previous studies of Leggett-Garg tests in the neutrino sector have largely focused on showing that the oscillation probabilities can violate classical bounds for certain parameter choices. In this work, we develop a more complete and data-driven framework that treats both the distributions representing the classical and quantum behavior, as well as the experimental uncertainties. We consider MINOS, T2K, NOvA, as well as the upcoming DUNE, and present the respective statistical significance for distinguishing quantum behavior from classical scenarios at these long-baseline neutrino experiments. Among them, we find that T2K yields the most significant violation of classicality, at the level of 14σ\sim 14 \sigma, with NOvA and projections for DUNE also resulting in a significance of more than 5σ5\sigma.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.15375,
  title  = {Exploring Quantumness at Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiments},
  author = {Murshed Alam and Vedran Brdar and Dibya S. Chattopadhyay},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.15375},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

30 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:14:47.522Z