Neutrino's phenomenology for 3rd year students

This is a workshop intended for 3rd year physics majors on neutrino's oscillations. Tee prerequisites are Quantum Mechanics and Special relativity. No Relativistic Quantum Mechanics or QFT needed. The aim is to understand the basics of the oscillation physics, to be able to understand the experimental plots and eventually address the debate which was going a few years ago on the famous factor of two.

References

​Neutrino masses and mixings and... by Strumia and Vissani, (Pag. 21 - 28) and references therein.

Material

• neutrinos.nb​: A mathematica notebook on neutrino's oscillations.

Exercises

1. Derive the expression for the probability that a neutrino created with flavor l at time t=0 evolves to a different flavor l' after a time t.
2. Write it in terms of a distance from the creation point. Assume neutrino's move (almost) at the speed of light. The probability depends on the neutrino's masses: How?
3. Find the explicit formulas in the case of two flavor oscillations.
4. Consider unstable neutrinos

-- Main.FabioMaltoni - 17 Mar 2009