The four-momentum conservation and equal velocity assumption in neutrino oscillations

Abstract

The neutrino masses and oscillation are closely related to how neutrino propagates. In this paper, we first derive a new form of four-momentum conservation that connects the four-momentum $(E_α,~p_α)$ of the neutrino flavor eigenstate and the four momenta $(E_i,~p_i)$ of its mass eigen-components. Then we use the assumption that the mass eigen-components travel at equal velocity to derive the energy-momentum square difference (EMSD) $E_α^2-p_α^2$ for the flavor eigenstate. It is shown that for the equal velocity assumption, $E_α^2-p_α^2$ will be a fixed constant in events with different $E_α$ and/or $p_α$. In contrast, for the equal energy or equal momentum assumption, $E_α^2-p_α^2$ will vary with $E_α$ or $p_α$ respectively. These EMSD can be checked by ongoing and future neutrino experiments. The phase difference between two neutrino mass eigen-components $|ν_i\rangle$ and $|ν_j\rangle$ is then derived for the equal velocity assumption. For relativistic neutrinos, it is shown that the phase difference depends linearly on the distance energy ratio $L/E$, the mass difference $m_i-m_j$ and an effective mass, in contrary to the linear dependance on $L/E$ and $m_i^2-m_j^2$ as the phase difference for equal energy or equal momentum assumption dose. The new phase difference implies different bounds on the neutrino masses or mass difference.