Abstract
The observation of neutrino oscillations in the atmospheric Super Kamiokande, solar SNO, reactor KamLAND, solar Homestake, GALLEX-GNO, SAGE and accelerator K2K and MINOS neutrino experiments was one of the most important recent discoveries in elementary particle physics. We will discuss experimental results later. In this section we will consider in some detail the theory of neutrino oscillations in vacuum. Neutrinos and antineutrinos are emitted in weak decays of pions and kaons, which are produced at accelerators and in the processes of interaction of cosmic ray protons in the atmosphere, in decays of muons, products of decays of pions and kaons, in β-decays of nuclei, products of the fission of uranium and plutonium in reactors, in nuclear reactions in the sun, etc.
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Notes
- 1.
Let us stress that this is a phenomenological definition of a flavor neutrino \(( \nu_{e},\nu_{\mu}, \nu_{\tau} )\) in the case of the nonconservation of the flavor lepton numbers.
- 2.
In the end-point part of the β-spectrum of \(^{3}\mathrm{H}\) the neutrino energies (a few eV) are comparable with the neutrino masses. Thus, in this part of the β-spectrum neutrino masses cannot be neglected. The measurement of the end-point part of the β-spectrum of \(^{3}\mathrm{H}\) allows to obtain an information about neutrino masses.
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Bilenky, S. (2011). Neutrino Oscillations in Vacuum. In: Introduction to the Physics of Massive and Mixed Neutrinos. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 817. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14043-3_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14043-3_6
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Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14042-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14043-3
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