Neutrinos propagating in curved spacetimes
Creators
- 1. Beijing Normal University, Gravitational Wave and Cosmology Laboratory, Department of Astronomy (China)
Description
In the Dirac-Weyl equation that describes massless neutrino propagation in the minimal Standard Model, the ( equivalence of the) gamma matrices convert Weyl spinors into spacetime tensors, and vice versa. They can thus be regarded as amalgamations of three different types of mappings, one that connects particle spinors directly forming representations to internal gauge symmetries to their spacetime counterparts that are embodied by null flags, another that translates the spacetime spinors into their corresponding tensors expressed in an orthonormal tetrad, and finally a purely tensorial transformation into the coordinate tetrad. The splitting of spinors into particle and spacetime varieties is not usually practised, but we advocate its adoption for better physical clarity, in terms of distinguishing internal and spacetime transformations, and also for understanding the scattering of neutrinos by spacetime curvature. We construct the basic infrastructure required for this task, and provide a worked example for the Schwarzschild spacetime. Our investigation also uncovers a possible under-determinacy in the flavoured Dirac-Weyl equation, which could serve as a new incision point for introducing flavour oscillation mechanisms.
Additional details
Identifiers
Publishing Information
- Journal Title
- European Physical Journal Plus
- Journal Volume
- 132
- Journal Issue
- 10
- Journal Page Range
- p. 1-21
- ISSN
- 2190-5444
INIS
- Country of Publication
- Germany
- Country of Input or Organization
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- INIS RN
- 51019183
- Subject category
- S72: PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS;
- Descriptors DEI
- FLAVOR MODEL; GAUGE INVARIANCE; NEUTRINOS; OSCILLATIONS; SCATTERING; SPACE-TIME; STANDARD MODEL; TRANSFORMATIONS; WEYL SPINORS
- Descriptors DEC
- COMPOSITE MODELS; ELEMENTARY PARTICLES; FERMIONS; FIELD THEORIES; GRAND UNIFIED THEORY; INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES; LEPTONS; MASSLESS PARTICLES; MATHEMATICAL MODELS; PARTICLE MODELS; QUANTUM FIELD THEORY; QUARK MODEL; SPINORS; UNIFIED GAUGE MODELS
Optional Information
- Copyright
- Copyright (c) 2017 Societ#Latin Small Letter A With Grave# Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature