English

Geometric and Majorana phases in neutrino oscillations

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2022-02-23 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

Geometric (Aharonov--Anandan) phases in neutrino oscillations have been claimed [Phys. Lett. B 780 (2018) 216] to be sensitive to the Majorana phases in neutrino mixing. More recently, however, it has been pointed out [Phys. Lett. B 818 (2021) 136376] that the proposed phases are not gauge invariant. Using both kinematic and geometric approaches, we show that all gauge-invariant Aharonov--Anandan phases (including the off-diagonal geometric phases associated with flavor transitions) are independent of the Majorana phases. This finding, which generalizes the well-known fact that conventional oscillation experiments cannot discern the Dirac or Majorana nature of the neutrino, implies that a hypothetical interference experiment cannot distinguish between the two either.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.11434,
  title  = {Geometric and Majorana phases in neutrino oscillations},
  author = {Lucas Johns},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.11434},
  year   = {2022}
}

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7 pages