Flavor entanglement in neutrino oscillations in the wave packet description

Abstract

The wave packet approach to neutrino oscillations provides an enlightening\ndescription of quantum decoherence induced, during propagation, by localization\neffects. Within this approach, we show that a deeper insight into the dynamical\naspects of particle mixing can be obtained if one investigates the behavior of\nquantum correlations associated to flavor oscillations. By identifying the\nneutrino three-flavor modes with (suitably defined) three-qubit modes, the\nexploitation of tools of quantum information theory for mixed states allows a\ndetailed analysis of the dynamical behavior of flavor entanglement during free\npropagation. This provides further elements leading to a more complete\nunderstanding of the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, and a basis for\npossible applicative implementations. The analysis is carried out by studying\nthe distribution of the flavor entanglement; to this aim, we perform combined\ninvestigations of the behaviors of the two-flavor concurrence and of the\nlogarithmic negativities associated with specific bipartitions of the three\nflavors.\n