Flavor entanglement in neutrino oscillations in the wave packet description

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Salerno - Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, I-84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
² INFN Sezione di Napoli, Gruppo collegato di Salerno - Salerno, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Salerno - Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, I-84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
⁴ Liceo Statale P.E. Imbriani - Via Pescatori 155, I-83100 Avellino, Italy
⁵ CNISM Unità di Salerno - I-84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy

Received: 29 July 2015
Accepted: 26 October 2015

Abstract

The wave packet approach to neutrino oscillations provides an enlightening description of quantum decoherence induced, during propagation, by localization effects. Within this approach, we show that a deeper insight into the dynamical aspects of particle mixing can be obtained if one investigates the behavior of quantum correlations associated to flavor oscillations. By identifying the neutrino three-flavor modes with (suitably defined) three-qubit modes, the exploitation of tools of quantum information theory for mixed states allows a detailed analysis of the dynamical behavior of flavor entanglement during free propagation. This provides further elements leading to a more complete understanding of the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, and a basis for possible applicative implementations. The analysis is carried out by studying the distribution of the flavor entanglement; to this aim, we perform combined investigations of the behaviors of the two-flavor concurrence and of the logarithmic negativities associated with specific bipartitions of the three flavors.