https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2016-16189-7
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Neutrino mixing in accelerated proton decays
1
Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences, High Energy Physics Group, Manipal University, Karnataka, 576104, Manipal, India
2
Department of Physics, University of Texas, 78712, Austin, TX, USA
3
IFGW, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
* e-mail: torrieri@ifi.unicamp.br
Received:
6
April
2016
Revised:
23
May
2016
Accepted:
10
June
2016
Published online:
19
July
2016
We discuss the inverse 
-decay of accelerated protons in the context of neutrino flavor superpositions (mixings) in mass eigenstates. The process 
is kinematically allowed because the accelerating field provides the rest energy difference between initial and final states. The rate of 
conversions can be evaluated in either the laboratory frame (where the proton is accelerating) or the co-moving frame (where the proton is at rest and interacts with an effective thermal bath of 
and 
due to the Unruh effect). By explicit calculation, we show that the rates in the two frames disagree when taking into account neutrino mixings, because the weak interaction couples to charge eigenstates whereas gravity couples to neutrino mass eigenstates (D.V. Ahluwalia et al., arXiv:1505.04082 [hep-ph]). The contradiction could be resolved experimentally, potentially yielding new information on the origins of neutrino masses.
© SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2016
