Open AccessUnlocking neutrino mysteries via the inverse β-decay
Author(s) -
Massimo Blasone,
Gaetano Lambiase,
Giuseppe Gaetano Luciano,
Luciano Petruzziello
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1548/1/012038
Subject(s) - physics , neutrino , unruh effect , context (archaeology) , inverse , particle physics , electron , neutrino oscillation , quantum , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics , mathematics , paleontology , geometry , biology
We discuss some recent results on neutrino physics in the context of the inverse β-decay of uniformly accelerated protons. Specifically, we compute the decay rate of the process p → n + e + + ν in both the laboratory frame (where the proton is non-inertial) and the comoving frame (where the proton is at rest and interacts with a thermal bath of electrons and neutrinos due to the Unruh effect). On the basis of the sole requirement of General Covariance of Quantum Field Theory, we manage to show that: i ) the asymptotic (i.e. “in” and “out” ) neutrino states to be used for the evaluation of the S-matrix are Pontecorvo flavor eigenstates, ii ) the Unruh thermal bath must be made up of oscillating neutrinos.