What separates particles and antiparticles?

What separates particles and antiparticles? Rate Topic:

#21 22 January 2012 - 11:09 PM questionposter

Primate

Widdekind, on 22 January 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

I understand, that neutrinos are generated, exclusively by Weak interactions; and, therefore, neutrinos are generated, exclusively into Weak eigenstates $\left( \nu_e, \nu_{\mu}, \nu_{\tau} \right)$ , which are super-posed "mixtures", of the canonical mass eigenstates $\left( \nu_1, \nu_2, \nu_3 \right)$ . Somehow, those different mass eigenstate components, of the neutrino's wave-function, evolve at different rates, due to said different masses; and that the resulting "beat frequencies" are observed, as neutrino oscillations.

How should this be understood ? For, in the rest-frame of a massive neutrino, surely the various components, of its wave-function, would not separate apart; rather, the wave-function would surely remain more-or-less "clumped together". And if so, then would not the wave-function, of that same neutrino, in some other reference frame, in which the neutrino was moving rapidly, be the "clumped together" wave-function, of the particle, in its own rest-frame, relativistically "boosted" by some velocity near that of light ?

If so, is not the constraint, on the various components, of a neutrino's multi-faceted wave-function, that they all must be propagating, with the same velocity $\beta = const, \gamma(\beta) = const.$ ? You mentioned SN1987a -- did those neutrinos arrive "all together in one pulse", or did they arrive gradually, over hours / days ? For, if they arrived as a "clump", then surely their wave-functions had not become "smeared through space", as would surely be the case, if the various components, of the neutrino wave-functions, were propagating at different speeds. I.e. if a neutrino is a little like a "motorcade of three cars", then all three "cars" "drive" at the same speed ? Again, otherwise, if not, then one of the "cars" would pull ahead; one of the "cars" would lag behind; and the neutrinos would become "smeared out thru space", with one "flavor" of "car" detected for the first few hours/days; then the next "flavor"; then the next.

The neutrinos generated by SN1987a were electron neutrinos. Whereas, the neutrinos generated for the CERN-SG experiments, were muon / tauon neutrinos, i.e. different "flavors" of neutrinos, from those generated by SN1987a. Could that "flavor" difference account for the discrepancies ?

So to sum it up, even though there's 3 different neutrinos, because of wave mechanics, their wave functions combine to form one wave function?

This post has been edited by questionposter: 22 January 2012 - 11:10 PM

Posts: 1,568 | Joined: 11-August 11
Back to top of the page up there ^
MultiQuote
Reply

#22 25 January 2012 - 04:00 AM Widdekind

Atom

I understand, that there are three "physical" or "mass" eigenstates $\left( \nu_1, \nu_2, \nu_3 \right)$ , which form three super-posed combinations $\left( \nu_e, \nu_{\mu}, \nu_{\tau} \right)$ , when neutrinos are generated, via Weak interactions, into Weak eigen-quantum-states.

http://www.artofprob...p/LaTeX:Symbols

Posts: 901 | Joined: 15-March 09
Back to top of the page up there ^
MultiQuote
Reply

#23 25 January 2012 - 04:58 AM questionposter

Primate

Widdekind, on 25 January 2012 - 04:00 AM, said:

http://physical-thou...f-neutrino.html

Seems to correspond to both of what we're saying, although I'll admit it's mostly what your saying

I think all you really do when you have neutrinos emitted from a source like the sun is just add up the wave functions of the 3 different neutrinos into a single wave just like you'd do with two electrons whom share the same energy state, and then you have a single wave which contains a probability of finding all 3 masses,

http://universe-revi...13-neutrino.htm

like in there, but I suppose it's only for a single flavor.
but I guess some expert can correct me if I'm wrong.

This post has been edited by questionposter: 25 January 2012 - 05:05 AM