Significance of L/E in neutrino oscillations

1. Mar 17, 2010

penguindecay

Dear fellow Physicists,

I am writing to ask what the significance of the term (L/E) in neutrino oscillation is? From my initial understanding it determines the oscillation mode, so if you have an experiment of a baseline of 300km, you can adjust the neutrino beam energy to suit the particular oscillation you wish to observe? For example muon to electron. Can someone explain in detail the significance of this term for me? Thank you,

Lee

2. Mar 17, 2010

Staff Emeritus
It's proportional to the proper time the neutrino experiences, which is the relevant quantity for oscillations.

3. Mar 17, 2010

penguindecay

Thank you, and its application is as I stated above? That one can have investigate the different regimes like solar neutrinos by changing length and/or energy?

4. Mar 17, 2010

Staff: Mentor

To observe the oscillation (periodic variation) in the probability of finding a particular neutrino type, you can either keep L fixed and vary E, or you can keep E fixed and vary L.

For example, see the equation at the bottom of this page:

http://www.ps.uci.edu/~superk/oscmath3.html

which shows the result for a simple two-neutrino oscillation scenario. For three neutrinos the oscillations are more complex, in general, but the phase of the oscillation still depends on L/E.