Neutrino oscillation bounds on quantum decoherence

With the advent of Belle II and the LHCb upgrade, the precision measurements of various B-Physics observables are on cards. This holds significant potential for delving into physics beyond the standard model of electroweak interactions. These measurements can also serve as means to establish limits on phenomena occurring at much finer length scales, such as quantum decoherence, which may arise due to potential discreteness in space-time or non-trivial topological effects. In this work, we set up the formalism to investigate the impact of quantum decoherence on several potential observables in B meson systems. The approach employs the trace-preserving Kraus operator formalism, extending unitary evolution to non-unitary dynamics while maintaining complete positivity. In this formalism, the decoherence effects are parametrized in terms of a single parameter. Through the analysis of purely leptonic, semileptonic, and non-leptonic decays of B mesons, we identify observables that could, in principle, be influenced by decoherence. The theoretical expressions are provided without neglecting the impact of decay width difference (∆Γ) and CP violation in mixing. Considering that many of these observables can be measured with high precision using the abundant data collected by LHCb and Belle II, our formalism can be applied to establish constraints on the decoherence parameter through multiple decay channels. This offers an alternative set-up for such studies, which, at present, are predominantly conducted in the neutrino sector.

Probing quantum decoherence at Belle II and LHCb

Alok,

Banerjee,

Chundawat

et al. 2024

Decoherence in neutrino oscillation at the ESSnuSB experiment

Aguilar,

Anastasopoulos,

Baussan

et al. 2024

Neutrino oscillation experiments provide a unique window in exploring several new physics scenarios beyond the standard three flavour. One such scenario is quantum decoherence in neutrino oscillation which tends to destroy the interference pattern of neutrinos reaching the far detector from the source. In this work, we study the decoherence in neutrino oscillation in the context of the ESSnuSB experiment. We consider the energy-independent decoherence parameter and derive the analytical expressions for Pμe and Pμμ probabilities in vacuum. We have computed the capability of ESSnuSB to put bounds on the decoherence parameters namely, Γ21 and Γ32 and found that the constraints on Γ21 are competitive compared to the DUNE bounds and better than the most stringent LBL ones from MINOS/MINOS+. We have also investigated the impact of decoherence on the ESSnuSB measurement of the Dirac CP phase δCP and concluded that it remains robust in the presence of new physics.

Quantum decoherence and relaxation in long-baseline neutrino data

Gomes,

Peres

2023

We investigate the effect of quantum decoherence and relaxation in neutrino oscillations using MINOS and T2K data. The formalism of open quantum systems is used to describe the interaction of a neutrino system with the environment, where the strength of the interaction is regulated by a decoherence parameter Γ. We assume an energy dependence parameterized by Γ = γ0(E/GeV)n, with n = −2, 0, +2, and consider three different scenarios, allowing the investigation of the effect of relaxation and of constraining the solar and atmospheric sectors to the same decoherence parameter. The MINOS and T2K data present a complementary behavior, with regard to our theoretical model, resulting in a better sensitivity for n = +2 and n = −2, respectively. We perform a combined analyses of both experimental data, which also include a reactor constraint on sin2θ13, and observe an independence of the results to the scenarios we investigate. Our analyses obtain limits on γ0 based on long-baseline data for scenarios allowing or not relaxation. We improve some previous bounds on γ0 and outline which data (solar, reactor, atmospheric, long-baseline) determine the more stringent constraints for different scenarios and energy dependencies.