Flavor and chiral oscillations with Dirac wave packets

We report about recent results on Dirac wave packets in the treatment of neutrino flavor oscillation where the initial localization of a spinor state implies an interference between positive and negative energy components of mass-eigenstate wave packets. A satisfactory description of fermionic particles requires the use of the Dirac equation as evolution equation for the mass-eigenstates. In this context, a new flavor conversion formula can be obtained when the effects of chiral oscillation are taken into account. Our study leads to the conclusion that the fermionic nature of the particles, where chiral oscillations and the interference between positive and negative frequency components of mass-eigenstate wave packets are implicitly assumed, modifies the standard oscillation probability. Nevertheless, for ultra-relativistic particles and sharply peaked momentum distributions, we can analytically demonstrate that these modifications introduce correction factors proportional to (m12/p0) square which are practically un-detectable by any experimental analysisComment: 16 pages, 2 figure

Dynamics of chiral oscillations - A comparative analysis with spin-flipping

Chiral oscillation as well as spin flipping effects correspond to quantum phenomena of fundamental importance in the context of particle physics and, in particular, of neutrino physics. From the point of view of first quantized theories, we are specifically interested in appointing the differences between chirality and helicity by obtaining their dynamic equations for a fermionic Dirac-type particle (neutrino). We also identify both effects when the non-minimal coupling with an external (electro)magnetic field in the neutrino interacting Lagrangian is taken into account. We demonstrate that, however, there is no constraint between chiral oscillations, when it takes place in vacuum, and the process of spin flipping related to the helicity quantum number, which does not take place in vacuum. To conclude, we show that the origin of chiral oscillations (in vacuum) can be interpreted as position very rapid oscillation projections onto the longitudinal direction of momentum.Comment: 14 pages, no figure

The construction of Dirac wave packets for a fermionic particle non-minimally coupling with an external magnetic field

We shall proceed with the construction of normalizable Dirac wave packets for {\em fermionic} particles (neutrinos) with dynamics governed by a ``modified'' Dirac equation with a non-minimal coupling with an external magnetic field. We are not only interested on the analytic solutions of the ``modified'' Dirac wave equation but also on the construction of Dirac wave packets which can be used for describing the dynamics of some observable physical quantities which are relevant in the context of the quantum oscillation phenomena. To conclude, we discuss qualitatively the applicability of this formal construction in the treatment of chiral (and flavor) oscillations in the theoretical context of neutrino physics.Comment: 10 page