[Paper Review] Quantum correlations in two-flavour neutrino oscillations

Ashutosh Kumar Alok, Subhashish Banerjee+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Nov 20, 2014

Neutrino Physics Research3 citations

TL;DR

This study investigates quantum correlations in two-flavor muon and tau neutrino oscillations, demonstrating that Bell's inequality is always violated, indicating non-classical correlations. Using the survival probability minimum as a critical point, it shows that all quantum correlation measures reach extremal values, confirming strong entanglement and nonlocality in neutrino systems.

ABSTRACT

Neutrino oscillations provide evidence for the mode entanglement of neutrino mass eigenstates in a given flavour eigenstate. Given this mode entanglement, it is pertinent to ask if other quantum correlations are present in neutrino evolution. In this study, we compute a number of such correlations for accelerator neutrinos in the approximation of two flavour nu_{mu} nu_{tau} oscillations. The point of minimum survival probability corresponds to the extremum point of all measures of quantum correlations. We find that Bell's inequality is always violated.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the presence of quantum correlations beyond mode entanglement in neutrino oscillations.
• To determine whether non-classical correlations, such as those violating Bell's inequality, are present in two-flavor neutrino systems.
• To analyze the behavior of various quantum correlation measures at the point of minimum neutrino survival probability.
• To establish the connection between the extremum of quantum correlation measures and the physical point of minimal survival probability.

Proposed method

• Analyzing two-flavor nu_mu - nu_tau neutrino oscillations in the context of accelerator neutrino experiments.
• Computing multiple measures of quantum correlations, including entanglement and nonlocality indicators.
• Identifying the survival probability minimum as a critical point for correlation analysis.
• Evaluating Bell's inequality violation using the quantum state evolution under the oscillation Hamiltonian.
• Applying quantum information theory tools to neutrino states to quantify non-classical features.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 Do quantum correlations other than mode entanglement exist in two-flavor neutrino oscillations?
• RQ2 Is Bell's inequality violated in the context of neutrino oscillations, indicating nonlocal quantum behavior?
• RQ3 Does the point of minimum survival probability coincide with extremal values of quantum correlation measures?
• RQ4 How do different quantum correlation measures behave across the oscillation evolution?

Key findings

• Bell's inequality is always violated in two-flavor neutrino oscillations, indicating persistent nonlocal quantum correlations.
• The point of minimum neutrino survival probability corresponds to the extremum of all quantum correlation measures.
• All investigated quantum correlation measures reach their maximum or minimum values at the survival probability minimum.
• The presence of nonlocality is robust across the entire oscillation parameter space, confirming strong quantum features.