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Abstract:
We revisit the theory of neutrino oscillations and describe it through
the formalism of weak measurements with postselection. It is well
understood that due to the large momentum uncertainty in detection,
there is no collapse of the neutrino wavefunction in the momentum or
energy basis, and the mass eigenstates are detected coherently. Here we
show that postselection, which projects the system to a final flavor
state, deforms the system wavefunction in such a way that the momentum
detected is not the expectation value of the neutrino mass eigenstates
momenta, but the corresponding weak value. We use the weak values to
describe the intermediate state in the oscillation process, avoiding
problems in defining probability currents for particle states with mass
superposition.
