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ORBITS OF HYADES MULTIPLE-LINED SPECTROSCOPIC BINARIES

PAPER 2: THE DOUBLE-LINED SYSTEM HD 27149

By J. Tomkin
McDonald Observatory, Univ. of Texas at Austin

to appear in the February 2003 issue of The Observatory

A new determination of the orbit of the Hyades double-lined spectroscopic binary HD 27149 is presented. The well-defined orbit provides the spectroscopic basis for an extremely accurate orbital parallax for the system — in particular, the size of the relative orbit ($`a\mathrm{sin}i=(a_1+a_2)\mathrm{sin}i=(67.075\pm 0.045)\times 10^6`$ km) is accurate to $`\pm 0.07`$ %. The minimum masses for the primary and secondary — $`m_1\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.096\pm 0.002M_{}`$ and $`m_2\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.010\pm 0.002M_{}`$ — are unexpectedly large for the spectral types thus suggesting the possibility of eclipses. Although the probability of eclipses is not large, the system being composed of G3V and G6V stars in a 75-day orbit, the possibility is of great interest. A rediscussion of a search for eclipses made by Jørgensen & Olsen1 in 1972 shows that central eclipses can be excluded, but that shorter duration off-centre eclipses cannot be ruled out. Ephemerides for possible primary and secondary eclipses are given.

Introduction

These papers report the determination of new orbits for double-lined spectroscopic binaries in the Hyades cluster. When complemented by visual orbits determined by means of optical interferometry, which may soon start becoming available, the results will provide accurate distances, by means of orbital parallax, for these systems and, thus, the Hyades cluster. In this paper we examine HD 27149.

Basic data for HD 27149, which has a Hyades cluster designation vB 23, are as follows: $`\alpha `$ (2000) $`4^\mathrm{h}`$ $`18^\mathrm{m}`$ $`01.8^\mathrm{s}`$, $`\delta `$ (2000) $`+18^{}`$ $`15^{}`$ $`24^{\prime \prime }`$; spectral type G5 (from HD catalogue); $`V=7.53`$, $`BV=0.68`$. An earlier spectral type of dG3 is given by Wilson2 in the General Catalogue of Stellar Radial Velocities. The secondary is not much fainter than the primary and, at the low or medium dispersions generally used for spectral typing, the two spectra are always blended so the spectral type is much more uncertain than that of a single star and is not the spectral type of the primary, but is intermediate between those of the primary and secondary. Batten & Wallerstein3 have used the $`BV`$ and $`UB`$ colours and the magnitude difference between the primary and secondary to indirectly estimate individual spectral types of G4V and G8V. More recently Barrado y Navascués & Stauffer4 have used the same method to estimate individual spectral types of G3V and G6V. As Hyades cluster members go, the system is quite bright and may well be within the reach of the newest optical interferometers, such as the CHARA telescope now in operation at Mt Wilson. In the infrared it will almost certainly be accessible to these telescopes — Patience et al.5 use its $`B`$ and $`BV`$ to estimate $`K=5.88`$.

The cluster membership of HD 27149 is not in doubt — van Bueren6 identified it as a member in his early major investigation of the cluster; more recently Griffin et al.7, in their comprehensive radial-velocity survey of the cluster, identified it as a member in their list of spectroscopic binaries awaiting orbit determinations; Perryman et al.8 likewise recognise it as a member in their recent study of the cluster based on parallaxes and proper motions measured with the Hipparcos satellite; and Madsen et al.9, who also used the Hipparcos data but with more stringent selection criteria for membership than Perryman et al., include it in their very recent list of members. We now briefly review the history of HD 27149 as a spectroscopic binary.

Wilson10 discovered the spectroscopic-binary nature of HD 27149 during a survey, mostly carried out between 1942 and 1946, of the radial velocities of 204 known and candidate Hyades cluster members, one of which was HD 27149. In the main table of his paper Wilson gave a mean radial velocity for HD 27149 of +44.0 km s-1 and classified it as a cluster member. The four individual velocities, given in the footnotes to the table, are all different and span a range of 21 km s-1. (The dates of the observations are not given, but can be found in the later useful compilation of Abt11.) The dispersions of Wilson’s spectra — three of 80 and one of 36 Å/mm — were such that the primary and secondary spectra of HD 27149 would have been blended so these velocities must have been intermediate between those of the primary and secondary and weighted towards the primary. Wilson clearly identified HD 27149 as a spectroscopic binary — he stated in the text of his paper “\[t\]he probable spectroscopic binaries number 23” and HD 27149 is one of 23 stars in the footnotes to his main table for which he either gives individual velocities or says two spectra are visible. Woolley et al.12 first detected the secondary spectrum. Their four discovery spectra were observed on the 2.5-m telescope at Mt Wilson in October and November 1959 with a dispersion of 10 Å/mm. An analysis of these spectra by Lambert et al.13 provided the first estimate of the magnitude difference between the primary and secondary — $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=0.69`$ in $`B`$. In 1973 Batten & Wallerstein3 published the first determination of the orbit. Their analysis, which was based on radial velocities from spectra observed with the 5-m at Palomar, the 2.5-m at Mt Wilson and the 1.8-m and 1.2-m telescopes at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, revealed an orbital period of 75 days, moderate eccentricity ($`e=0.23`$), a mass ratio $`m_1/m_2=1.14`$ and minimum masses ($`m_1\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.04M_{}`$ and $`m_2\mathrm{sin}^3i=0.91M_{}`$) sufficiently close to the masses demanded by the spectral types to show that the inclination of the plane of the orbit must be close to $`90^{}`$. Most recently, in 1982, McClure14 reported five new observations with the radial velocity spectrometer on the 1.2-m telescope at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, which he used to improve the Batten & Wallerstein orbit. And there matters have rested with respect to our knowledge of the radial velocities and orbit of HD 27149.

Two recent surveys of multiplicity among Hyades members — one by Mason et al.15 made in 1991 with the KPNO 4-m Mayall telescope and optical speckle imaging and one by Patience et al.5 carried out between 1993 and 1996 with the 5-m telescope at Palomar and speckle imaging at 2.2 $`\mu `$m — both scrutinised HD 27149 and found no sign of a visual companion. The system, thus, consists solely of the spectroscopic binary pair so far as we know.

This paper reports a new determination of the orbit of HD 27149 based on new high-resolution spectra from McDonald Observatory.

Observations and radial velocities

The observations were made on the 2.7-m and 2.1-m telescopes at McDonald Observatory between 1995 and 2002. As shown in Table I, the first 33 observations were made with the 2.7-m telescope and the last 17 were made with the 2.1-m. The instrumentation and observing procedure were the same as those used for the Hyades binary examined in the first paper in this series16 and have been described there. Here it is enough to recall that the observations on the 2.7-m telescope used the 2dcoudé echelle spectrometer17, have a resolving power of 60 000 and nearly complete wavelength coverage from $``$ 4000 – $``$ 9000 Å, while those on the 2.1-m telescope used the Sandiford Cassegrain echelle spectrograph18, also have a resolving power of 60 000 and complete wavelength coverage from $``$ 5600 – $``$ 7000 Å.

The data were processed and wavelength-calibrated in a conventional manner with the IRAF package of programs. The spectra are double-lined with primary and secondary lines of similar strength and, at most orbital phases, the secondary lines are well separated from their primary counterparts. Fig. 1 shows an example in which we see primary and secondary Ni i and Fe i lines near 6400 Å.

The procedure used to measure the radial velocities was the same as in Paper 1 of this series and has been described there. To summarise: the wavelengths of well-defined primary and secondary lines were measured by fitting Gaussian profiles with the IRAF splot routine, the wavelength differences between the measured and rest wavelengths of the lines provided the topocentric radial velocities, telluric O2 lines were measured in the same way so as to determine the wavelength offset between the stellar spectrum and its associated Th–Ar comparison spectrum, the stellar topocentric velocities were then corrected by subtracting from them the telluric line offsets in velocity form and, finally, the heliocentric correction led to the heliocentric radial velocities. The velocities are, thus, absolute velocities.

In Paper 1 a tiny additional adjustment of the stellar velocities was made in order to force the averages for similarly measured velocities from observations of the radial-velocity standard $`ϵ`$ Tau (G9.5 III, itself a member of the Hyades) on the 2.7-m and 2.1-m telescopes to be the same as the average of all the velocities from both telescopes; the corrections were a decrease of 70 m s-1 for the 2.7-m data and an increase of 140 m s-1 for the 2.1-m. In view of the growing realisation that K giants are subject to intrinsic low amplitude radial-velocity variations of $``$ 50 – 400 m s-1 over a large range of timescales — see, for example, Hatzes et al.19 — it is evident $`ϵ`$ Tau might be subject to similar radial-velocity variations so the small difference between the velocities from the two telescopes might be real. There is thus no compelling reason for making an adjustment and so it was decided not to do so — the measured velocities from the 2.7-m and 2.1-m telescopes are used as they stand. Table I gives the UT dates, heliocentric Julian dates and heliocentric radial velocities for the McDonald observations. We now turn to the determination of the primary-secondary orbit.

The orbit

The method of differential corrections was used to determine the primary-secondary orbit from the primary and secondary velocities. A necessary preliminary to the orbit calculation was the assigment of suitable weights for the various velocities — namely velocities for observations with blended primary and secondary spectra, velocities from the 2.7-m telescope versus those from the 2.1-m and primary versus secondary velocities.

Observations with blended primary and secondary spectra: In a few observations the small wavelength separation between the primary and secondary spectra meant the primary lines and their secondary counterparts were blended, to a greater or lesser degree. For these observations the deblend option in splot had been used to fit double Gaussian profiles to the pairs of blended primary and secondary lines and successfully measure separate primary and secondary velocities. For three observations, however, the primary-secondary wavelength separations were so small and the blending so severe that it proved best to give zero weight to the velocities from these observations. In one of these cases the observation was so close to a single-lined phase that only a single velocity representative of the blended primary and secondary spectra could be measured (see Table I and Fig. 2). In the other two observations (see Table I) the use of deblend had provided separate primary and secondary velocities, but a trial orbital solution showed their $`OC`$ were unusually large indicating the residual malign influence of blending.

2.7-m versus 2.1-m telescope: A trial orbital solution in which the velocities from the 2.7-m and 2.1-m observations had equal weight showed that the velocity residuals are somewhat larger for the 2.1-m observations, which is not surprising when one recalls that the 2.7-m observations were made at the coudé focus while those on the 2.1-m were made at the Cassegrain focus. The criterion that the weight multiplied by the average of the residuals squared should be equal for the 2.7-m and 2.1-m velocities requires the weight of the 2.1-m velocities to be $`0.3\times `$ the weight of the 2.7-m velocities.

Primary versus secondary velocities: The secondary lines are slightly weaker than the primary lines so one expects the weights for the secondary velocities to be somewhat less than those for the primary velocities. In a trial solution, in which the primary and secondary velocities had equal weight, it was found that for the 2.7-m observations the averages of the residuals squared for the primary and secondary velocities demanded that the weight of the secondary velocities be $`0.5\times `$ that of the primary velocities, while for the 2.1-m observations the averages of the residuals squared for the primary and secondary velocities demanded that the weight of the secondary velocities be $`1.8\times `$ that of the primary velocities. The cause of the unrealistic secondary weight indicated by the 2.1-m velocity residuals could, perhaps, be due to the small number of 2.1-m observations (15 with non-zero weight) and the fact that a relatively large number (6) of them happen to have been made when there was some blending of the primary and secondary lines. A recalculation of the weights for primary and secondary velocities for the 2.1-m residuals using only observations in which the velocity separation between primary and secondary is 30 km s-1 or more gives a much more reasonable weight of 0.95 for secondary velocities relative to primary velocities. It was decided to adopt the result required by the 2.7-m observations and make the secondary velocities half the weight of the primary velocities for both the 2.7-m and 2.1-m observations, so the 2.7-m primary and secondary velocities have weights 1 and 0.5, respectively, and the 2.1-m primary and secondary velocities have weights 0.3 and 0.15, respectively.

With the weights of the various categories of velocity fixed, a new solution of the 2.7-m and 2.1-m velocities was done. It gave excellent agreement of the observed and calculated velocities — the r.m.s. residual for the velocities of unit weight (ie 2.7-m primary velocities) is only 0.06 km s-1. Within reasonable limits the orbital solution is impervious to the relative weights of the primary and secondary velocities; for example, if instead of making the secondary velocities half the weight of the primary velocities, we were to adopt equal weights for the 2.7-m primary and secondary velocities and do likewise for the 2.1-m primary and secondary velocities the corresponding changes in the orbital elements are all much less than the estimated errors of the orbital elements. With the solution of the McDonald velocities accomplished, the next step is to assemble and assess the velocities of HD 27149 available in the literature and see if a solution of these velocities and the McDonald velocities combined is an improvement over the solution of the McDonald velocities alone.

The previously published primary and secondary radial velocities of HD 27149 are those of Woolley et al.12 (4 observations made at Mt Wilson), those of Batten and Wallerstein3 (15 observations from Palomar or Mt Wilson, 18 from the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, and 1 from the Lick Observatory) and those of McClure14 (5 observations from the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory). With the exception of McClure’s radial velocities which were measured with a radial velocity spectrometer, all of these radial velocities were measured by means of photographic spectra. A trial orbital solution of these and the McDonald radial velocities together indicated that these radial velocities, because of their lower accuracy compared with the McDonald ones, have very low weight — about one thousandth for the photographic velocities and about one hundredth for McClure’s velocities. This idea, therefore, was dropped and the solution of the McDonald velocities alone, described above, was adopted as the final solution.

The phases and velocity residuals for this solution are given in Table I, the orbital elements are given in Table II and Fig. 2 shows the observed radial velocities and calculated radial velocity curves. We now examine the most interesting features of the orbit.

Discussion

The new orbit confirms the characteristics of HD 27149 discovered by Batten & Wallerstein3 — a period of 75 days, moderate eccentricity and a longitude of periastron ($`\omega =178.32\pm 0.15`$ degrees) which is very close to 180 degrees so the major axis lies almost across the line of sight with periastron passage very close to the descending node. The new orbit and precise orbital parameters promise to provide, when complemented by a visual orbit of similar quality, accurate masses for the two components of HD 27149 and an accurate orbital parallax for the system; the linear separation of the primary and secondary — $`a\mathrm{sin}i=(a_1+a_2)\mathrm{sin}i=(67.075\pm 0.045)\times 10^6`$ km — is accurate to $`\pm 0.07`$ %. This linear separation combined with a distance to HD 27149 of 47.6 pc5 lead to a corresponding angular separation of 9.4 mas for the visual orbit.

The new systemic velocity — $`\gamma =38.461\pm 0.014`$ km s-1 — is little different from Batten & Wallerstein’s result — $`38.0\pm 0.3`$ km s-1 — so the new orbit does not change the radial velocity contribution to HD 27149’s kinematic situation very much. It is of interest, however, to compare the systemic velocity of HD 27149 with Madsen et al.’s9 recent determination of its astrometric radial velocity.

Astrometric radial velocities, which are determined from proper motions and trigonometric parallaxes along with the assumption that the stars in the cluster share the same velocity vector, are entirely independent of spectroscopy. Madsen et al., who identify HD 27149 by its Hipparcos Catalogue number (20056), estimate its astrometric radial velocity to be $`38.46\pm 0.6`$ km s-1, which compares with the spectroscopic radial velocity of $`38.461\pm 0.014`$ km s-1 determined here. The excellent agreement of these two completely independent results is most pleasing, although the sizes of the errors, especially in the astrometric radial velocity, suggest that the exactness of the agreement is at least partially fortuitous. Also it must be recognised that the spectroscopic radial velocity includes two effects — the gravitational redshift and the convective blueshift — which do not complicate the astrometric radial velocity. The gravitational redshifts of the two G dwarf components of HD 27149 must be similar to the 0.64 km s-1 gravitational redshift of the Sun20. The convective blueshift, which is an effect of stellar surface convection, arises because the hotter rising convective cells make a larger contribution to the total light from the stellar disk than the cooler sinking cells. The shift is dependent on the strength of the absorption lines being used for radial velocity measurement, being most marked for weak lines and almost non-existent for very strong lines. From Figure 2 of Allende Prieto & García López20 one finds that for the mostly medium strength lines (intrinsic equivalent widths of between 50 and 100 mÅ) used to measure the radial velocities of the primary and secondary of HD 27149 the solar convective blueshift, which we use as an approximation to the situation in the components of HD 27149, is $`0.30\pm 0.05`$ km s-1. Although it might appear that the next step is to remove the gravitational redshift and convective blueshift from the spectroscopic radial velocity of HD 27149 so as to obtain a modified spectroscopic radial velocity that is directly comparable with the astrometric radial velocity, one more factor must first be reckoned with. We recall that each individual spectroscopic radial velocity is derived from the differences between the measured and rest wavelengths for the set of measured stellar absorption lines and, furthermore, the rest wavelengths adopted for the lines are their measured wavelengths in the Sun21. These solar wavelengths include the solar gravitational redshift and convective blueshift. The spectroscopic radial velocity of HD 27149, thus, not only has the gravitational redshift and convective blueshift of HD 27149 added to it but also has the solar gravitational redshift and convective blueshift subtracted from it. The gravitational redshifts of the primary and secondary of HD 27149 and the Sun must be quite similar, because all three stars lie on the same part of the main sequence, and likewise the convective blueshifts of the three stars must also be quite similar so for both types of shift the stellar and solar contributions to the spectroscopic radial velocity essentially cancel each other. The gravitational redshift and convective blueshift thus have little effect on the spectroscopic radial velocity of HD 27149 and so allowance for their presence hardly changes the excellent agreement between the spectroscopic and astrometric radial velocities noted above. Next we look at the minimum masses of the primary and secondary and the possibility of eclipses.

The minimum masses of the primary and secondary are similar to the actual masses inferred from the spectral types which suggests the possibility of eclipses — a circumstance already recognised by Batten & Wallerstein3. In fact the revised minimum masses of the primary and secondary — $`m_1\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.096\pm 0.002M_{}`$ and $`m_2\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.010\pm 0.002M_{}`$ — are slightly larger than those determined by Batten & Wallerstein — $`m_1\mathrm{sin}^3i=1.04M_{}`$ and $`m_2\mathrm{sin}^3i=0.91M_{}`$ — so the case for eclipses is underlined. We note that the minimum masses are in fact somewhat larger than the actual masses indicated by the spectral types. For example, with the primary and secondary spectral types of G3 and G6, respectively, recommended by Barrado y Navascués & Stauffer4 and a standard mass versus spectral type calibration22 one arrives at masses of 0.98 and 0.89 $`M_{}`$ for the primary and secondary. In view of the inherent uncertainty in spectral typing a double-lined spectroscopic binary in which the strengths of the primary and secondary lines are not very different — Batten & Wallerstein, for example, note that an “an (unresolved) spectrogram of dispersion 30 Å/mm, obtained at Victoria, is consistent with a spectral class between G2V and G8V” — it is not worth making anything of the discrepancy, but it does highlight the possibility of eclipses.

The phases of the conjunctions, which are when eclipses will occur if the system is eclipsing, are 0.1715 (primary in front) and 0.8369 (secondary in front). The linear separations between the primary and secondary at the two conjunctions are similar — projected onto the line of sight they are $`r\mathrm{sin}i=62.94\times 10^6`$ km (primary in front) and $`61.96\times 10^6`$ km (secondary in front) — so if there are eclipses it is likely that there are both primary and secondary eclipses. If for the purposes of the present speculative discussion we assume that the primary and secondary are both of one solar radius, then the total duration of a central eclipse, primary or secondary, would be $`11`$ hours. The primary eclipse would be about one magnitude deep, while the secondary eclipse would be somewhat less deep. None of the McDonald observations has a phase close enough to the phases of conjunction that it might have been made during a primary or secondary eclipse so the spectroscopic observations are mute with respect to the question of eclipses. Eclipses require the orbital inclination to be within $`1^{}.3`$ of $`90^{}`$ so, although their probability is small, there is still a sporting chance of their occurrence. We now re-examine photometric observations of HD 27149 made in January and February 1972 by Jørgensen & Olsen1, who searched for eclipses at the suggestion of Batten & Wallerstein.

Every night from 1972 January 4 to March 1 inclusive Jørgensen & Olsen observed HD 27149 once in uvby with a simultaneous four-channel photometer on the Danish 50 cm reflector at the European Southern Observatory. Two nights near conjunctions when they observed it twice and seven nights when they did not observe it were exceptions to this routine. There was no sign of eclipses. But the ephemerides for predicting conjunctions available to Jørgensen & Olsen were uncertain by $`\pm 1`$ day so they did not know how the conjunctions were placed with respect to their regular once-a-night scrutiny, a circumstance which, combined with the fact that even central eclipses would have a duration of only about 11 hours, meant that “any eclipse could easily have been overlooked” — as they pointed out. Now, thanks to the accuracy of the new orbit, the times of conjunction it provides can be projected back into the past to see how the two conjunctions that occurred during January and February 1972 were placed with respect to Jørgensen & Olsen’s photometric observations. The $`\pm 0.12`$ day uncertainty of this backward projection is almost entirely due to the accumulation of the period error over the 145 orbits that separate the epoch (January 2002) of the new orbit from 1972. Fig. 3 compares a schematic light curve for central eclipses with Jørgensen & Olsen’s photometric observations during the nights of the January and February 1972 conjunctions. It turns out they timed their observations quite well; central eclipses are excluded, but shorter duration off-centre eclipses are not ruled out. We now consider the photometry of HD 27149 provided by the Hipparcos satellite.

This much more recent photometry consists of 41 observations, on the Hipparcos $`H_p`$ magnitude system, made from January 1990 to July 1992. Inspection of the observations, which are available at the Hipparcos website23, shows no sign of eclipses, but a comparison of the calculated conjunction dates with the dates of the Hipparcos photometry shows that all of the photometry falls well outside the times of possible eclipses and so does not throw any light on the eclipse question.

Ephemerides for future conjunctions are: J.D. $`2452291.8523+75.6587E`$ (primary in front) and $`2452266.5298+75.6587E`$ (secondary in front). At present and for the next four years, or so, the error in these predicted times of conjunction is about 55 minutes. Further into the future the error will slowly increase as the accumulation of the period error makes its presence felt. Table III gives the Julian and UT dates provided by these ephemerides for the last three months of 2002 and all of 2003. Photometrists who find themselves on the night side of the Earth at these times are encouraged to turn their telescopes towards HD 27149 and see if it eclipses. The probability is small, but the prospective reward is great.

In conclusion we summarise our picture of HD 27149 as follows: The new spectroscopic orbit provides the basis for an accurate orbital parallax, the expected angular separation is $`9`$ mas, the minimum masses must be very close to the actual masses and, although the photometric observations rule out central eclipses, the door to off-centre eclipses is still open.

Acknowledgements

Observations of HD 27149 by David Lambert are gratefully acknowledged and thanks go to Frank Fekel for providing the orbit solution programs. Roger Griffin pointed me towards the Hipparcos photometry. David Doss’ and Jerry Martin’s patient guidance was essential for the successful operation of the McDonald telescopes and their instrumentation. This work was supported, in part, by a grant (AST9618414) from the National Science Foundation of the U.S.A. and by the Cox Endowment of the Astronomy Department, University of Texas.

References

(1) B. G. Jørgensen & E. H. Olsen, IBVS, No. 652, 1972.

(2) R. E. Wilson, General Catalogue of Stellar Radial Velocities (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington D. C.), 1953.

(3) A. H. Batten & G. Wallerstein, PDAO, 14, 135, 1973.

(4) D. Barrado y Navascués & J. R. Stauffer, A&A, 310, 879, 1996.

(5) J. Patience et al., AJ, 115, 1972, 1998.

(6) H. G. van Bueren, Bull. Astron. Inst. Netherlands, 432, 385, 1952.

(7) R. F. Griffin et al., AJ, 96, 172, 1988.

(8) M. A. C. Perryman et al., A&A, 331, 81, 1998.

(9) S. Madsen, D. Dravins & L. Lindegren, A&A, 381, 446, 2002.

(10) R. E. Wilson, ApJ, 107, 119, 1948.

(11) H. A. Abt, ApJS, 19, 387, 1970.

(12) R. v.d. R. Woolley, D. H. P. Jones & L. M. Mather, ROB, No. 23, 1960.

(13) D. L. Lambert, A. R. D. Norman & D. H. P. Jones, The Observatory, 81, 145, 1961.

(14) R. D. McClure, ApJ, 254, 606, 1982.

(15) B. D. Mason et al., AJ, 105, 220, 1993.

(16) J. Tomkin & R. F. Griffin, The Observatory, 122, 1, 2002.

(17) R. G. Tull et al., PASP, 107, 251, 1995.

(18) J. K. McCarthy et al., PASP, 105, 881, 1993.

(19) A. P. Hatzes, A. Kanaan & D. Mkrtichian, in J. B. Hearnshaw & C. D. Scarfe (eds.), Precise Stellar Radial Velocities (ASP Conference Series, Vol. 185), 1999, p. 166.

(20) C. Allende Prieto & R. J. García López, A&ASS, 129, 41, 1998.

(21) C. E. Moore, M. G. J. Minnaert & J. Houtgast, The Solar Spectrum 2935 Å to 8770 Å, NBS monograph 61 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.), 1966.

(22) J. S. Drilling & A. U. Landolt, in A. N. Cox (ed.) Allen’s Astrophysical Quantities (Springer-Verlag, New York), 2000, p. 381.

(23) The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues, http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/hipparcos.html.

Figure captions

Fig. 1: The spectrum of HD 27149 at 6380 Å showing a Ni i line (rest wavelength 6378.3 Å) and a Fe i line (rest wavelength 6380.8 Å) in the primary and secondary.

Fig. 2: The radial velocities for the primary and secondary of HD 27149 and the calculated radial velocity curves. The filled circle near phase 0.8 is the velocity for the blended primary and secondary spectra in an observation at a single-lined phase; the velocity has zero weight in the solution for the orbits.

Fig. 3: The Jørgensen & Olsen photometry of HD 27149 at the January 1972 conjunction (possible secondary eclipse) and the February 1972 conjunction (possible primary eclipse) compared with a schematic light curve for central eclipses. Times of mid-eclipse are estimated by projecting the times of conjunction for the new orbit back into the past; the dotted lines show how much earlier or later these eclipses might have been as a result of the 0.12 day uncertainty in the projection. The two observations close together on the night of 1972 February 24 exclude a central eclipse. If the conjunctions were earlier, within the limit set by the uncertainty in the projection, these two points would exclude central eclipses even more firmly, while, if the conjunctions were later, then these two points in combination with that for the night of 1972 January 5 would also exclude central eclipses. The Jørgensen & Olsen photometry, thus, rules out central eclipses. Shorter duration off-centre eclipses, however, may still have managed to fit themselves into the gaps between the photometric observations.


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# Neutrino oscillations from relativistic flavor currents

## I Introduction

The recent experimental evidencehomestake ; Kam ; SNO ; kamland ; K2K  of neutrino mixing and oscillationsPont  is the first clear sign of physics beyond the Standard ModelCheng-Li . Thus much effort is currently devoted to the full understanding of such phenomenon, from the issue of its origin to more phenomenological ones.

In this framework, there has been recently a remarkable progress in the study of the problem of field mixing in Quantum Field Theory (QFT) BV95 ; BHV99 ; bosonmix ; 3flav ; remarks ; currents ; comment ; Berry ; hannabuss ; Ji ; fujii1 ; fujii2 ; fujii3 . It is important to remark that, in spite of the fact of being usually treated in Quantum Mechanics (QM), the mixing between states of different masses is not even allowed in a non-relativistic theory due to the Bargmann superselection rules Barg . The problem of constructing an Hilbert space for flavor states is indeed a long standing one Fujiiold  which has even been claimed to be impossible to achieve Kimbook  (see however Ref.fujii1  for a criticism of that argument). As first shown in Ref.BV95 , the difficulty lies in the fact that the Hilbert spaces for particles with definite flavor and those with definite mass are actually orthogonal in the infinite volume limit. This result has been subsequently generalized for any number of generations and for different types (fermionic or bosonic) of fieldshannabuss ; Ji ; bosonmix . It has also emerged that the use of the correct Hilbert space (i.e. the one for the flavor fields) leads to corrections to the usual Pontecorvo oscillation formula.

The necessity for a full QFT treatment of mixing also stems from a more phenomenological perspective, namely from the calculation of (flavor) oscillation formulas. The usual treatment gives indeed in a very simple way an oscillation formula in time, which is actually not of great use when discussing current experiments where the distance source-detector is measured rather than time (data being collected over large time intervals)Kayser . In order to derive an oscillation formula in space, one usually converts the time oscillation formula by means of some assumptions (equal time assumption, classical propagation, etc.) which are however questionable in many respects (see Ref.Beuthe  for a review). Thus several QFT approaches have been developed giuntipak ; Grimus ; Cardall ; Kiers ; Ishikawa , such as the external wavepacket models or the stationary boundary conditions models, which attempt a more realistic description of neutrino oscillations. It seems indeed that the main features of such formula are now quite well understood Beuthe , including the concepts of coherence length, localization terms, dispersion times, etc.

On the other hand, all these calculation schemes have been developed for highly relativistic neutrinos and/or for nearly degenerate masses and in most cases the spin structure of the wavefunctions was neglected (i.e. neutrinos were treated as scalars). Also, the identification of the Hilbert spaces for mass and flavor neutrinos was implicitly assumed in the choice of the propagators (see Ref.BHV99  for a discussion of flavor propagators).

A completely different approach to the problem is indeed possible and was advocated in Refs.Anco ; Zralek : an oscillation formula in space could be derived in a straightforward way, by considering the flux of neutrinos through the detector as the integral over the measurement time and detector surface of the relativistic flavor current for the oscillating neutrinos. An attempt in this direction is contained in Ref.Anco , which however deals with QM and therefore uses a probability current derived from Schrödinger equation. As pointed out in Ref.Zralek , the obstacle to the extension of this result to QFT lies in the difficulty of constructing a relativistic current for mixed particles, which boils down again to the problem of the definition of the Hilbert space for such (not on-shell) particles.

The solution to this problem was recently given in Ref.currents : it turned out that it is indeed possible to define these (non-conserved) flavor currents in a consistent way by use of previous results on the flavor Hilbert space. An analysis of the currents associated to mixing for the case of three flavor neutrino mixing with CP violation and for boson mixing can be found in Refs.3flav ; bosonmix .

In this paper, we calculate the oscillation formula by using the relativistic flavor currents above mentioned. For simplicity, we only treat the case of mixing among two generations of Dirac neutrinos: the extension to Majorana fields and to three flavors will be given elsewhere. The formula we obtain in a very direct way has the full space-time dependence and contains previous results obtained by use of the flavor charges. We then obtain a general expression for the electron neutrino flux in three dimensions with spherical symmetry. Although a fully three dimensional analysis is possible within our formulation, we study in detail the one-dimensional case with gaussian wavepackets, which is indeed the one most frequently considered in literature. We show how in the highly relativistic limit and by integrating over an infinite time, the standard space dependent oscillation formulagiuntipak ; Beuthe  is obtained, which includes the coherence length and the localization term. However our formula is also valid for non-relativistic neutrinos and it accounts for flavor vacuum effects. Numerical evaluations of our result show deviations from the usual formula in the non-relativistic regime.

The paper is organized as follows: in Section II we present a derivation of the flavor currents in the line of Ref.currents  and give some details on the construction of the flavor Hilbert space. In Section III we first obtain the expectation value of the flavor current in the most general case and then a more explicit expression in the case of a spherically symmetric emission. Then, in Section IV, we specialize to the one-dimensional case and obtain the space dependent expression for the electron neutrino flux. Further analysis is done by choosing gaussian wavepackets. Section V is devoted to conclusions.

## II Relativistic currents for mixed fields

Following Ref.currents , let us consider the following Lagrangian density describing two Dirac fields with a mixed mass term:

$`(x)=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_f(x)\left(i\overline{)}M\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_f(x),`$ (1)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_f^T=(\nu _e,\nu _\mu )`$ and $`M=\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_e& m_{e\mu }\\ m_{e\mu }& m_\mu \end{array}\right)`$. The mixing transformations

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_f(x)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta & \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ \mathrm{sin}\theta & \mathrm{cos}\theta \end{array}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x),`$ (4)
with $`\theta `$ being the mixing angle and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m^T=(\nu _1,\nu _2)`$, diagonalize the quadratic form of Eq.(1) to the Lagrangian for two free Dirac fields, with masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$:

$`(x)=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_m(x)\left(i\overline{)}M_d\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x),`$ (5)
where $`M_d=diag(m_1,m_2)`$. One also has $`m_e=m_1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +m_2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$, $`m_\mu =m_1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +m_2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$, $`m_{e\mu }=(m_2m_1)\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\theta `$. We assume $`m_2m_1`$ and $`\theta `$ in $`[0,\frac{\pi }{4}]`$.

The Lagrangian Eq.(1) is invariant under global $`U(1)`$ phase transformations of the type $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m^{}=e^{i\alpha }\mathrm{\Psi }_m`$: as a result, we have the conservation of the Noether charge $`Q=d^3𝐱I^0(x)`$ (with $`I^\mu (x)=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_m(x)\gamma ^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)`$) which is indeed the total charge of the system (i.e. the total lepton number).

Consider now the $`SU(2)`$ transformations acting on $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m`$:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_m^{}(x)=e^{i\alpha _j\tau _j}\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x),j=1,2,3,`$ (6)
with $`\alpha _j`$ real constants, $`\tau _j=\sigma _j/2`$ and $`\sigma _j`$ being the Pauli matrices.

For $`m_1m_2`$, the Lagrangian is not generally invariant under (6) and we obtain, by use of the equations of motion,

$`\delta (x)=i\alpha _j\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_m(x)[\tau _j,M_d]\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)=\alpha _j_\mu J_{m,j}^\mu (x),`$
$`J_{m,j}^\mu (x)=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_m(x)\gamma ^\mu \tau _j\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x),j=1,2,3.`$ (7)
The above analysis is valid at classical level. We now quantize the free fields $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _2`$ in the usual way (see Appendix A for conventions).

Then the charge operators $`Q_{m,j}(t)d^3𝐱J_{m,j}^0(x)`$, satisfy the $`su(2)`$ algebra $`[Q_{m,j}(t),Q_{m,k}(t)]=iϵ_{jkl}Q_{m,l}(t)`$. The Casimir operator is proportional to the total charge. From (7) we also see that $`Q_{m,3}`$ is conserved as $`M_d`$ is diagonal. Let us define the combinations:

$`Q_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Q+Q_{m,3},Q_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}QQ_{m,3}`$ (8)
$`Q_i={\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}{\displaystyle }d^3𝐤(\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r\beta _{𝐤,i}^r\beta _{𝐤,i}^r),i=1,2,`$ (9)
where the last expression has been normal ordered, as usual. These are nothing but the Noether charges associated with the non-interacting fields $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _2`$: in the absence of mixing, they are the flavor charges, separately conserved for each generation. Observe now that the transformation

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_f(x)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2i\theta Q_{m,2}(t)}\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)e^{2i\theta Q_{m,2}(t)}`$ (10)
is just the mixing Eq.(4). Thus $`G_\theta (t)e^{2i\theta Q_{m,2}(t)}`$ is the generator of the mixing transformations (see Appendix A). In Ref.BV95 , it has been shown that the action of $`G_\theta (t)`$ on the vacuum state $`|0_{1,2}`$ results in a new vector (flavor vacuum) $`|0(t)_{e,\mu }G_\theta ^1(t)|0_{1,2}`$, orthogonal to $`|0_{1,2}`$ in the infinite volume limit.

Following Ref.currents , in accordance with Eq.(8), we define the flavor charges for mixed fields as

$`Q_\sigma (t)`$ $``$ $`G_\theta ^1(t)Q_iG_\theta (t)`$ (11)
with $`(\sigma ,i)=(e,1),(\mu ,2)`$ and $`Q_e(t)+Q_\mu (t)=Q`$. They have a simple expression in terms of the flavor ladder operators:

$`Q_\sigma (t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3𝐱\nu _\sigma ^{}(x)\nu _\sigma (x)}={\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐤\left(\alpha _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)\right)},\sigma =e,\mu .`$ (12)
These charge operators then act on the flavor Hilbert space $`_{e,\mu }`$ (see Appendix A). For the single neutrino and antineutrino states of definite momentum and helicity111Note that there is no ambiguity here in defining the flavor neutrino states with definite momentum.:

$`|\nu _\sigma (t)\alpha _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)|0(t)_{e,\mu };|\overline{\nu }_\sigma (t)\beta _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)|0(t)_{e,\mu },`$ (13)
one obtains

$`Q_\sigma (t)|\nu _\sigma (t)=|\nu _\sigma (t);Q_\sigma (t)|\overline{\nu }_\sigma (t)=|\overline{\nu }_\sigma (t).`$ (14)
In the following, we will use the flavor currents:

$`J_\sigma ^\mu (x)`$ $``$ $`\overline{\nu }_\sigma (x)\gamma ^\mu \nu _\sigma (x)=G_\theta ^1(t)J_i^\mu (x)G_\theta (t),`$ (15)
with $`(\sigma ,i)=(e,1),(\mu ,2)`$. From the global $`U(1)`$ invariance follows the continuity equation:

$`_\mu \left[J_e^\mu (x)+J_\mu ^\mu (x)\right]=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$ (16)
## III space-time dependent neutrino oscillation formula

In this Section, we consider the calculation of the general (i.e. space-time dependent) neutrino oscillation formula, by use of the flavor currents introduced in §II. In Section IV, we then extract from this the space dependent formula by integrating over time.

As already discussed in Ref.Anco ; Zralek , although in the context of QM, what one is ultimately interested in current experiments is actually the flux of neutrinos of a given flavor through the surface of the detector $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in a (large) measurement time $`T`$. In the case of electron neutrinos, this quantity is given by:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _e\nu _e}(L)={\displaystyle _{t_0}^T}𝑑t{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}\nu _e|J_e^i(𝐱,t)|\nu _e𝑑𝐒^i,`$ (17)
where $`L`$ is the distance source-detector. Our aim is now to calculate the expectation value of the flavor four-current density on a localized neutrino state, defined as a wave-packet in flavor Hilbert space.

### III.1 Expectation value of the flavor current density

We define an initial222We work in the Heisenberg picture, the time evolution is thus borne by the operators., localized state $`|\nu _e(𝐱_0,t_0)`$ with definite flavor e :

$`|\nu _e(𝐱_0,t_0)=A{\displaystyle d^3𝐤e^{i(\omega _{k,1}t_0𝐤.𝐱_0)}f(𝐤)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t_0)|0_{e,\mu }},`$ (18)
where A is a normalization constant, $`f(𝐤)`$ is the form of the wave-packet and $`|0_{e,\mu }`$ the flavor vacuum at time $`t=t_0`$. This corresponds to an electron neutrino being emitted at $`(t_0,𝐱_0)`$. For convenience we set $`(t_0,𝐱_0)=(0,0,0,0)`$ in the following. Note that the wave packet is defined in the Hilbert space of flavor fields.

The normalization of this state is given by:

$`1`$ $`=`$ $`\nu _e|\nu _e=|A|^2{\displaystyle d^3𝐤d^3𝐩f^{}(𝐤)f(𝐩)\{\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(0),\alpha _{𝐩,e}^r(0)\}}=|A|^2{\displaystyle d^3𝐤|f(𝐤)|^2}.`$
From Section II, the electron neutrino four-current is given as

$`J_e^\mu (𝐱,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\nu }_e(𝐱,t)\gamma ^\mu \nu _e(𝐱,t)=\nu _e^{}(𝐱,t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \nu _e(𝐱,t),`$ (19)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu =\gamma ^0\gamma ^\mu `$. In the following we will use the chiral representation of the Dirac matrices (see Appendix B). The expansion for the flavor fields given in Eq.(89) leads to the following explicit form of the current operator:

$`J_e^\mu (𝐱,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐩}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i(𝐤𝐩)𝐱}{\displaystyle \underset{r,s}{}}[u_{𝐩,1}^s(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu u_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐩,e}^s(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)v_{𝐩,1}^s(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)\beta _{𝐩,e}^s(t)`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`u_{𝐩,1}^s(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐩,e}^s(t)\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)+v_{𝐩,1}^s(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu u_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\beta _{𝐩,e}^s(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)].`$
In Appendix C, we prove that $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J^\mu (𝐱,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=0`$. This result leads to (see Appendix A):

$`\nu _e|J_e^\mu (𝐱,t)|\nu _e=\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐱,t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)`$ (23)
with

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)A{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\left(\begin{array}{c}u_{𝐤,1}^rX_{𝐤,e}(t)\hfill \\ _sv_{𝐤,1}^s(\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤)^{sr}Y_{𝐤,e}(t)\hfill \end{array}\right)}`$ (26)
$`X_{𝐤,e}(t)=\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \left[e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}|U_𝐤|^2+e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}|V_𝐤|^2\right]`$ (27)
$`Y_{𝐤,e}(t)=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta |U_𝐤|\chi _1\chi _2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _{k,2}+m_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _{k,1}+m_1}}\right]\left[e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}\right]`$ (28)
where $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤=\left(\begin{array}{cc}k_3& k_{}\\ k_+& k_3\end{array}\right)`$ and $`\chi _i\left(\frac{\omega _{k,i}+m_i}{4\omega _{k,i}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$. We made use of the following relations:

$`\{\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t),\alpha _{𝐩,e}^s(0)\}=\delta ^{rs}X_{𝐤,e}(t)e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}\delta ^3(𝐤𝐩),\{\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t),\alpha _{𝐩,e}^s(0)\}=(\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤)^{rs}Y_{𝐤,e}(t)e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}\delta ^3(𝐤𝐩).`$ (29)
The expression in Eq.(23) contains the most general information about neutrino oscillations and can explicitly evaluated once the form of the wave-packet is specified. A similar expression can be easily obtained for the other quantity of interest, namely $`\nu _e|J_\mu ^\mu (𝐱,t)|\nu _e`$.

For comparison with previous results and for better understanding the expression (23), let us consider the limit situation in which the wave-packet becomes a plane wave, with definite momentum: $`f(𝐤)=(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}\delta ^3(𝐤𝐪)`$. This obviously means that we loose information about localization and we need to integrate over the entire volume to get the flavor oscillations (in time). We indeed find ($`\rho _eJ_e^0`$):

$`\nu _e|Q_e(t)|\nu _e={\displaystyle d^3𝐱\nu _e|\rho _e(x)|\nu _e}`$ $`=`$ $`1\mathrm{sin}^2(2\theta )\left[|U_𝐪|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{q,2}\omega _{q,1}}{2}}t\right)+|V_𝐪|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{q,2}+\omega _{q,1}}{2}}t\right)\right]`$ (30)
which agrees with the result obtained in Refs.BHV99 . Notice the presence of the non-standard oscillation term and of the momentum dependent amplitudes (the Bogoliubov coefficients satisfying $`|U_𝐪|^2+|V_𝐪|^2=1`$).

We now consider the situation in which we have a spherically symmetric emission of the neutrinos from the source at $`(x_0,t_0)`$. This allows us to limit our investigation to the radial flux, which can be identified without loss of generality with the $`z`$\- component of the current. In this case, Eq.(23) takes it simplest form, since $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^3`$ is diagonal in the chosen (chiral) representation.

The matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^3`$ can be expanded as a linear combination of spinor outer products:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^3=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)=\gamma ^0\gamma ^3={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{4}{}}}(1)^{j+1}\eta _j\eta _j^{}`$ (35)
where

$`\eta _1=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right),\eta _2=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right),\eta _3=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right),\eta _4=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 1\\ 0\end{array}\right)`$ (52)
This decomposition permits a remarkable rearrangement, since Eq.(23) then becomes:

$`\nu _e|J_e^3(𝐱,t)|\nu _e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{4}{}}}(1)^{j+1}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{}(𝐱,t)\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_j(𝐱,t)={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{4}{}}}(1)^{j+1}\left|𝒜_j^r+_j^r\right|^2`$ (55)
where (see also Appendix D)

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_j(𝐱,t)=\eta _j^{}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)\left(\begin{array}{c}𝒜_j^r(𝐱,t)\\ _j^r(𝐱,t)\end{array}\right).`$ (58)
Eq.(55) gives a compact expression for the flavor current expectation value in the case of a spherically symmetric emission. It can indeed be integrated to give a useful expression for the electron neutrino flux at a given distance from the source. Although this calculation is of interest, because it contains information on the three-dimensional nature of the propagation, it will be not developed further here, and in the following Section we will consider the case of one-dimensional propagation. Note that in the present case (spherical symmetry), the expectation values of $`J_e^1`$ and $`J_e^2`$ at any point can be obtained from the above expectation value of $`J_e^3`$. In the general case Eq.(23), however, the expectation values of $`J_e^1`$ and $`J_e^2`$ have to be calculated independently and this can be done by use of the decomposition of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ given in Appendix B.

It remains to consider $`\rho _e`$, which is the relevant measurable quantity for experiments without angular resolution. It is indeed easy to get its expectation value:

$`\nu _e|\rho _e(𝐱,t)|\nu _e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{4}{}}}\left|𝒜_j^r+_j^r\right|^2,`$ (59)
which is related to the expectation value of $`J_e^3`$ as follows:

$`\nu _e|J_e^3(𝐱,t)|\nu _e`$ $`=`$ $`\nu _e|\rho (𝐱,t)|\nu _e2|𝒜_2^r+_2^r|^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}|𝒜_4^r+_4^r|^2`$ (60)
This is a significant result in the sense that it directly contradicts the usual $`x=t`$ approach: if the neutrino really travelled on a straight line then, for points for which the Cartesian z-direction coincides with the polar radial direction (as defined with respect to the source), one should have333the result would be the same up to a constant if one replaced the velocity of light by the (constant) average velocity of the neutrinos.: $`\nu _e|J_e^3(x)|\nu _e=\nu _e|\rho (x)|\nu _e`$.

### III.2 One–dimensional case

Given the complexity of the three-dimensional analysis, we now limit the problem to one spatial dimension (as do most of other treatments in the literature).

The wave packet now takes the form $`f(𝐤)=(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}\delta (k_1)\delta (k_2)f(k_3)`$, which corresponds to a packet with definite momentum in the $`x`$ \- and $`y`$ \- direction and a momentum distribution $`f(k_3)`$ along the $`z`$ \- direction. The uncertainty principle then dictates that the corresponding spatial distribution is that of a beam of infinite radius and uniform surface density moving in the z-direction (a neutrino sheet).

In the one-dimensional case, we have (see Appendix D): $`𝒜_2^r=𝒜_3^r=0`$ and $`_2^r=_3^r=0`$ for all $`r`$. In order to perform explicit evaluations, we choose in the following $`r=1`$: this does not imply any loss of generality since the final result is independent of $`r`$. We also put $`𝒜_1^1+_1^1=\psi _++\psi _+^{}`$ and $`𝒜_4^1+_4^1=\psi _{}+\psi _{}^{}`$.

Eq.(55) then becomes:

$`\nu _e|J_e^3(z,t)|\nu _e`$ $`=`$ $`\left|\psi _+(z,t)+\psi _+^{}(z,t)\right|^2\left|\psi _{}(z,t)+\psi _{}^{}(z,t)\right|^2`$ (61)
with

$`\psi _+(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}\right]\mathrm{T}_k(z)`$ (62)
$`\psi _+^{}(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`iA{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}(\omega _{k,2}t)|V_k|\left[\mathrm{T}_k(z)|V_k|\mathrm{T}_k(z)|U_k|\right]`$ (63)
$`\psi _{}(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}\right]\mathrm{T}_k(z)`$ (64)
$`\psi _{}^{}(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`iA{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}(\omega _{k,2}t)|V_k|\left[\mathrm{T}_k(z)|V_k|+\mathrm{T}_k(z)|U_k|\right]`$ (65)
where

$`\mathrm{T}_k(z)=e^{ikz}f(k)\left[\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}+\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\right]+e^{ikz}f(k)\left[\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\right]`$ (66)
The above relations are the main result of this work: starting with an arbitrary wave-packet $`f(k)`$ we can now determine the expected one–dimensional flux of electron neutrinos at a given distance from the source as:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _e\nu _e}(z)={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑t\nu _e|J_e^3(z,t)|\nu _e`$ (67)
Note that the $`\psi _\pm ^{}`$ terms are the corrections due to the use of the flavor Hilbert space in the definition of neutrino state. Eq.(67) is an exact expression for the space oscillation formula in 1D and will be in the following evaluated numerically with the choice of a gaussian wave packet. In the following Section, however, we digress on the relativistic limit, which allows us to extract an (approximated) analytical form of Eq.(67) and to compare it with the existing results in the literature.

## IV Approximations and Numerical Analysis

In this Section, we explicitly evaluate Eq.(67) by choosing a gaussian wave packet. We first consider the relativistic limit and show how the full result Eq.(67) reduces to the standard formula given in giuntipak ; Beuthe . Then we proceed with numerical evaluations of the exact formula Eq.(67), which allow us to test the non-relativistic regime.

We choose $`f(k)`$ to be a gaussian wave-packet with momentum spread $`\sigma _k`$:

$`f(k)=H\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(kq)^2}{4\sigma _k^2}}\right]`$ (68)
with $`H=(2\pi \sigma _k^2)^{\frac{1}{4}}`$.

### IV.1 Recovering the standard oscillation formula: sharp gaussian wave–packets in relativistic limit

To recover previous results in the literaturegiuntipak ; Beuthe , we consider the case of sharp gaussian wave–packet in relativistic limit, satisfying the following conditions :

1. The mean momentum $`q`$ of both mass species lies in the relativistic regime such that $`\omega _{q,i}m_i`$ and $`|V_q|0`$. Hence $`\psi _+^{}`$ and $`\psi _{}^{}`$ can be ignored.
2. The gaussian is sharply peaked, $`q\sigma _k`$: the largest contributions to the integrals come from around the mean momentum $`q`$, i.e. Laplace’s method laplace  can be used.

Using the above conditions, one has $`\left(1\pm \frac{m_i}{\omega _{k,i}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}1\pm \frac{m_i}{2\omega _{q,i}}`$. Thus, to first order in $`\frac{m_1}{\omega _{q,1}}`$:

$`\psi _+(z,t)`$ $``$ $`AH{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,1}tkz)}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,2}tkz)}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(kq)^2}{4\sigma _k^2}}\right]`$ (69)
$`+`$ $`AH{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{2\omega _{q,1}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,1}t+kz)}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,2}t+kz)}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(k+q)^2}{4\sigma _k^2}}\right]`$
For $`q`$ positive, the integral on the second line can be neglected. On the other hand, we obtain for $`\psi _{}`$ the following expression:

$`\psi _{}(z,t)`$ $``$ $`AH{\displaystyle \frac{m_1}{2\omega _{q,1}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,1}tkz)}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,2}tkz)}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(kq)^2}{4\sigma _k^2}}\right]`$ (70)
$`+`$ $`AH{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,1}t+kz)}+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{k,2}t+kz)}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(k+q)^2}{4\sigma _k^2}}\right]`$
Again, the second term is exponentially suppressed and can be neglected. The first term of $`\psi _{}`$ is also small for relativistic neutrinos and will be neglected in the following. We thus have:

$`\nu _e|J_e^3(z,t)|\nu _e`$ $``$ $`|\psi _+(z,t)|^2`$ (71)
#### IV.1.1 Momentum integration

We now turn towards the evaluation of $`\psi _+`$ using Laplace’s method. Let us first define the dispersion times $`T_i^{disp}=\omega _{q,i}/2\sigma _k^2`$, which set the timescale for the spatial dispersion of the wave-packets.

Expanding the integrand about the mean momentum to second order in $`\delta k=kq`$, we obtain444Using the expansion $`\omega _{k,i}\omega _{q,i}+\frac{\delta k^2}{2\omega _{q,i}}+v_{q,i}\delta k`$ and making a change of variable $`kq=\delta k`$, we get
$$\psi _+AH\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(qz\omega _{q,1}t)}_q^{\mathrm{}}d(\delta k)e^{i\delta k(zv_{q,1}t)}\mathrm{exp}\left[\delta k^2\left(\frac{1}{4\sigma _k^2}+i\frac{t}{2\omega _{q,1}}\right)\right]$$

$$+AH\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(qz\omega _{q,2}t)}_q^{\mathrm{}}d(\delta k)e^{i\delta k(zv_{q,2}t)}\mathrm{exp}\left[\delta k^2\left(\frac{1}{4\sigma _k^2}+i\frac{t}{2\omega _{q,2}}\right)\right]$$
which is brought in the given form by completing the square for the argument of the gaussian.:

$`\psi _+(z,t)`$ $``$ $`AH\mathrm{cos}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{q,1}tqz)}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q_1}t)^2}{4S_1(t)}}\right]{\displaystyle _q^{\mathrm{}}}d(\delta k)\mathrm{exp}\left[S_1(t)\left(\delta ki{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q,1}t)}{2S_1(t)}}\right)^2\right]`$ (72)
$`+`$ $`AH\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i(\omega _{q,2}tqz)}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q_2}t)^2}{4S_2(t)}}\right]{\displaystyle _q^{\mathrm{}}}d(\delta k)\mathrm{exp}\left[S_2(t)\left(\delta ki{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q_2}t)}{2S_2(t)}}\right)^2\right]`$
with $`S_i(t)\sigma _x^2(1+it/T_i^{disp})`$. Also, $`\sigma _x`$ is a spread in the configuration space, defined by $`\sigma _x\sigma _k=\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`v_{q,i}q/\omega _{q,i}`$. To a good approximation we can set $`_q^{\mathrm{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}`$ and obtain

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}d(\delta k)e^{S_i(t)\left(\delta ki\frac{(zv_{q,1}t)}{2S_i(t)}\right)^2}=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \sigma _k^2}{1+it/T_i^{disp}}}}I_i(t)`$
Following the usual treatment Beuthe , we now consider propagation for $`tT_i^{disp}`$. Then $`I_i(t)`$ becomes a constant: $`I=2\sqrt{\pi }\sigma _k`$. For propagation times beyond $`T_i^{disp}`$, Laplace’s method cannot be applied and one has to resort to the method of stationary phase laplace ; Beuthe .

We are now in a position to calculate the interference term. We get, after some rearrangements,

$`\nu _e|J_e^3(z,t)|\nu _e`$ $``$ $`|A|^2H^2|I|^2\left(\mathrm{cos}^4\theta \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q,1}t)^2}{2\sigma _x^2}}\right]+\mathrm{sin}^4\theta \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q,2}t)^2}{2\sigma _x^2}}\right]\right)`$ (73)
$`+`$ $`2|A|^2H^2|I|^2\mathrm{}\left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{i\varphi (t)f(t)}\right]`$
where the phase $`\varphi _{12}`$ and $`f(t)`$ are given by

$`\varphi (t)=(\omega _{q,1}\omega _{q,2})t;f(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sigma _x^2}}[(zv_{q,1}t)^2+(zv_{q,2}t)^2]`$ (74)
We note that $`\varphi (t)`$ and $`f(t)`$ are the usual terms obtained in the external wave packet model in QFT Beuthe ; giuntipak . We now proceed with time integration in order to finally get an expression involving distance only.

#### IV.1.2 Time average

When calculating the interference term, spatial oscillations results from the cross–term. We show this explicitly by considering the first term in Eq.(73): in the Laplace regime where $`(t/T_i^{disp})0`$, if we assume that the experiment runs for a very long time,

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(zv_{q,i}t)^2}{2\sigma _x^2}}\right]𝑑t={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2\pi }}{v_{q,i}}}\sigma _x`$
The first and second terms of Eq.(73) are thus merely a collection of constants.

Let us now turn to the oscillation term. The dominant contributions in the time integral come from $`\mathrm{exp}[f(t)]`$, more precisely in the neighborhood of the maximum value of $`f(t)`$, which occurs at

$`t_{max}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_{q,1}+v_{q,2}}{v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2}}\right)z`$ (75)
Thus the integrand can be approximated as

$`e^{i\varphi (t)f(t)}\mathrm{exp}\left[i\varphi _{max}f_{max}it{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dt}}|_{t_{max}}{\displaystyle \frac{t^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2f}{dt^2}}|_{t_{max}}\right]`$ (76)
$`f_{max}=f(t_{max})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{z^2\sigma _k^2(v_{q,1}v_{q,2})^2}{v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2}}z^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}\pi \sigma _k}{L^{osc}q}}\right)^2=\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{L^{coh}}}\right)^2`$ (77)
$`\varphi _{max}=\varphi (t_{max})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{zq\left(v_{q,2}^2v_{q,1}^2\right)}{v_{q,1}v_{q,2}(v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2)}}2\pi {\displaystyle \frac{z}{L^{osc}}}`$ (78)
to first order555We assume that $`v_{q,i}1\frac{m_i^2}{2q^2}`$. Thus $`v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^22`$, $`v_{q,2}^2v_{q,1}^2\mathrm{}m^2/q^2`$ and $`v_{q,1}v_{q,2}1`$.. A coherence length $`L^{coh}=(L^{osc}q)/(\sqrt{2}\pi \sigma _k)`$ and an oscillation length $`L^{osc}=4\pi q/\mathrm{}m^2`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=m_2^2m_1^2`$, having the same form as in the standard approach, are thus recovered. The other terms can be factorized as follows:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2}{4\sigma _x^2}}\left(ti{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega _{q,1}\omega _{q,2})}{v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2}}2\sigma _x^2\right)^2+\sigma _x^2{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega _{q,1}\omega _{q,2})^2}{v_{q,1}^2+v_{q,2}^2}}`$ (79)
The first term integrates to a constant: $`\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma _x`$. As for the second term, it becomes $`\frac{\sigma _x^2}{2}(\omega _{q,1}\omega _{q,2})^22\pi ^2\left(\frac{\sigma _x}{L^{osc}}\right)^2`$ which gives the localization termBeuthe . Hence we can finally write down the (normalized) highly-relativistic space oscillation formula (compare to Ref.giuntipak ):

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\nu _e\nu _e}(z)`$ $``$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{sin}^2(2\theta )\left\{1\mathrm{cos}\left(2\pi {\displaystyle \frac{z}{L^{osc}}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{L^{coh}}}\right)^22\pi ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _x}{L^{osc}}}\right)^2\right]\right\}`$ (80)
Thus we have shown that the exact formula Eq.(67) reproduces the usual oscillation formula in the relativistic limit.

### IV.2 Numerical Calculations

In this Section, we perform numerical evaluations of the exact oscillation formula Eq.(67) in order to compare it with the approximate result Eq.(80) for sample values of the parameters. We plot the two expressions in the maximal mixing case for a given $`\sigma _k`$ and for different values of $`q`$ and of the masses: in the relativistic case (Fig.1) we observe a perfect agreement of the two formulas, as expected.

We then explore the non-relativistic region and observe that relevant deviations from the standard formula do indeed appear, both in the oscillation amplitude and in the phase. This is already evident in Figs.2,3 where we use $`q=100`$ with $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=3`$ in the first case and $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=10`$ in the second case. The fact that the two plots are simply scaled with respect to each other, indicates that for these values of parameters the usual relation coherence length vs. oscillation length: $`L^{coh}=(L^{osc}q)/(\sqrt{2}\pi \sigma _k)`$ is still valid with $`L^{osc}=4\pi q/\mathrm{}m^2`$. In Fig.4 we use $`q=50`$ with $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=3`$ and as expected we observe a larger deviation from the usual formula.

Note that the value of the Bogoliubov coefficient $`|V_k|`$ is very small in all the considered cases666The values of $`|V_q|`$ are: $`1\times 10^3`$ (Fig.1), $`1\times 10^2`$ (Fig.2), $`4\times 10^2`$ (Fig.3), $`2\times 10^2`$ (Fig.4)., so the observed corrections originate from the “standard” terms $`\psi _\pm `$ Eqs.(62),(64) in the oscillation formula Eq.(67) rather than from the flavor vacuum contribution, which thus turns out to be very difficult to detect when considering (time-)averaged oscillation formulas like in the present case.

Figure 1: Plot of the QFT flavor flux (solid line) against the standard oscillation formula (dashed line)
for $`\theta =\pi /4`$, $`\sigma _k=10`$, $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=3`$, $`q=1000`$.

Figure 2: Plot of the QFT flavor flux (thick line) against the standard oscillation formula (light line)
for $`\theta =\pi /4`$, $`\sigma _k=10`$, $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=3`$, $`q=100`$.

Figure 3: Plot of the QFT flavor flux (thick line) against the standard oscillation formula (light line)
for $`\theta =\pi /4`$, $`\sigma _k=10`$, $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=10`$, $`q=100`$.

Figure 4: Plot of the QFT flavor flux (thick line) against the standard oscillation formula (light line)
for $`\theta =\pi /4`$, $`\sigma _k=10`$, $`m__1=1`$, $`m__2=3`$, $`q=50`$.

A more complete discussion of these corrections and of their possible phenomenological relevance will be given elsewhere BPT03 .

## V Conclusions

In this paper, we have for the first time derived a space-time dependent oscillation formula directly from the relativistic currents for flavor fields. These currents have been recently studied in Ref.currents , a result which served as basis for the present analysis, together with previous results on the Hilbert space for mixed fieldsBV95 ; BHV99 .

We first presented a general expression for the electron neutrino flux in three dimensions and then specialized to the case with spherical symmetry, for which we were able to find a more explicit expression. In order to perform further analysis and numerical evaluations, we then considered the one-dimensional case with gaussian wave-packets, which is also the one most frequently treated in literature.

Our formulation presents several advantages with respect to existing treatments of neutrino oscillations in Quantum Field Theory: it is a very straightforward approach which is easy to relate to practical experimental situations; it takes into account the non-trivial nature of the flavor vacuum and flavor states are thus consistently defined. It takes explicitly into account the full spin structure of neutrino states and does not resort to relativistic limit and/or assumption of nearly degenerate masses for the energy eigenstates.

We have shown how, in different limits, our formula reproduce existing results. Thus, in the case of relativistic neutrinos with nearly degenerate masses, we recover analytically the standard space dependent expression for neutrino oscillations giuntipak ; Beuthe , which is thus once again confirmed from an independent approach. Also, previous results on the flavor chargesBHV99  have been recovered, exhibiting the non-standard oscillation terms.

The numerical analysis shows that in the non-relativistic regime, our formula predicts significant deviations from the standard oscillation formula giuntipak ; Beuthe , which on the other hand cannot be expected to be valid in that region. An analysis of the phenomenological implications of the results obtained in this paper will be presented elsewhereBPT03 .

## VI Acknowledgements

M.B. thanks the ESF network COSLAB and EPSRC for support. P.P.P. and H.W.C.T. would like to thank the organizers of the International Workshop on the Quantum Field Theory of Particle mixing and Oscillations, 13-15 June 2002, Vietri sul Mare (Italy) and the Royal College of Science Association for financial support. PPP also thanks the FCT-MCES and the ESF for their financial support in the context of 3rd EC support framework.

## Appendix A Flavor Hilbert space

The free fields $`\nu _1(x)`$ and $`\nu _2(x)`$ are written as ($`tx_0`$):

$`\nu _i(x)={\displaystyle \underset{r=1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}\left[u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r+v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,i}^r\right]},i=1,2,`$ (81)
where $`u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)=e^{i\omega _{k,i}t}u_{𝐤,i}^r`$ and $`v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)=e^{i\omega _{k,i}t}v_{𝐤,i}^r`$, with $`\omega _{k,i}=\sqrt{|𝐤|^2+m_i^2}`$. The $`\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r`$ and the $`\beta _{𝐤,i}^r`$, $`i,r=1,2`$ are the annihilation operators for the vacuum state $`|0_{1,2}|0_1|0_2`$: $`\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r|0_{12}=\beta _{𝐤,i}^r|0_{12}=0`$. The anticommutation relations are:

$`\{\nu _i^\alpha (𝐱),\nu _j^\beta (𝐲)\}_{t=t^{}}=\delta ^3(𝐱𝐲)\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta _{ij},\alpha ,\beta =1,..,4,`$ (82)
$`\{\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r,\alpha _{𝐩,j}^s\}=\delta ^3(𝐤𝐩)\delta _{rs}\delta _{ij};\{\beta _{𝐤,i}^r,\beta _{𝐩,j}^s\}=\delta ^3(𝐤𝐩)\delta _{rs}\delta _{ij},i,j=1,2.`$ (83)
All other anticommutators are zero. The orthonormality and completeness relations are:

$`u_{𝐤,i}^ru_{𝐤,i}^s=v_{𝐤,i}^rv_{𝐤,i}^s=\delta _{rs},u_{𝐤,i}^rv_{𝐤,i}^s=v_{𝐤,i}^ru_{𝐤,i}^s=0,;{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}(u_{𝐤,i}^ru_{𝐤,i}^r+v_{𝐤,i}^rv_{𝐤,i}^r)=1\mathrm{I}_2.`$ (84)
where $`1\mathrm{I}_n`$ is the $`n\times n`$ unit matrix. Eq.(4) can be recast in the form:

$`\nu _\sigma (x)`$ $``$ $`G_\theta ^1(t)\nu _i(x)G_\theta (t),`$ (85)
$`G_\theta (t)`$ $`=`$ $`exp\left[\theta {\displaystyle d^3𝐱\left(\nu _1^{}(x)\nu _2(x)\nu _2^{}(x)\nu _1(x)\right)}\right],`$ (86)
with $`(\sigma ,i)=(e,1),(\mu ,2)`$. The generator $`G_\theta (t)`$ does not leave invariant the vacuum $`|0_{1,2}`$:

$`|0(t)_{e,\mu }=G_\theta ^1(t)|0_{1,2}.`$ (87)
We will refer to $`|0(t)_{e,\mu }`$ as the flavor vacuum: it is orthogonal to $`|0_{1,2}`$ in the infinite volume limitBV95 . We define the flavor annihilators, relative to the fields $`\nu _e(x)`$ and $`\nu _\mu (x)`$ as777The annihilation of the flavor vacuum at each time is expressed as: $`\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)|0(t)_{e,\mu }=G_\theta ^1(t)\alpha _{𝐤,1}^r|0_{1,2}=0`$.

$`\alpha _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)G_\theta ^1(t)\alpha _{𝐤,i}^r(t)G_\theta (t);\beta _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)G_\theta ^1(t)\beta _{𝐤,i}^r(t)G_\theta (t)`$ (88)
with $`(\sigma ,i)=(e,1),(\mu ,2)`$. The flavor fields can be expanded as:

$`\nu _\sigma (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{r=1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}\left[u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)+v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,\sigma }^r(t)\right]e^{i𝐤𝐱}}.`$ (89)
with $`(\sigma ,i)=(e,1),(\mu ,2)`$. The flavor annihilation operators are defined as operators

$`\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \alpha _{𝐤,1}^r+\mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\left[u_{𝐤,1}^r(t)u_{𝐤,2}^s(t)\alpha _{𝐤,2}^s+u_{𝐤,1}^r(t)v_{𝐤,2}^s(t)\beta _{𝐤,2}^s\right]`$ (90)
$`\alpha _{𝐤,\mu }^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \alpha _{𝐤,2}^r\mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\left[u_{𝐤,2}^r(t)u_{𝐤,1}^s(t)\alpha _{𝐤,1}^s+u_{𝐤,2}^r(t)v_{𝐤,1}^s(t)\beta _{𝐤,1}^s\right]`$ (91)
$`\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _{𝐤,1}^r+\mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\left[v_{𝐤,2}^s(t)v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,2}^s+u_{𝐤,2}^s(t)v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,2}^s\right]`$ (92)
$`\beta _{𝐤,\mu }^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _{𝐤,2}^r\mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\left[v_{𝐤,1}^s(t)v_{𝐤,2}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,1}^s+u_{𝐤,1}^s(t)v_{𝐤,2}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,1}^s\right]`$ (93)
In the reference frame where $`𝐤`$ is collinear with $`\widehat{𝐤}(0,0,1)`$, the spins decouple and we have:

$`\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \alpha _{𝐤,1}^r+\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(U_𝐤^{}(t)\alpha _{𝐤,2}^r+ϵ_𝐤^rV_𝐤(t)\beta _{𝐤,2}^r\right)`$ (94)
$`\alpha _{𝐤,\mu }^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \alpha _{𝐤,2}^r\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(U_𝐤(t)\alpha _{𝐤,1}^rϵ_𝐤^rV_𝐤(t)\beta _{𝐤,1}^r\right)`$ (95)
$`\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _{𝐤,1}^r+\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(U_𝐤^{}(t)\beta _{𝐤,2}^rϵ_𝐤^rV_𝐤(t)\alpha _{𝐤,2}^r\right)`$ (96)
$`\beta _{𝐤,\mu }^r(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _{𝐤,2}^r\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(U_𝐤(t)\beta _{𝐤,1}^r+ϵ_𝐤^rV_𝐤(t)\alpha _{𝐤,1}^r\right)`$ (97)
where $`ϵ_𝐤^r(1)^{r+𝐤\widehat{𝐤}+1}`$ and $`U_𝐤(t)`$, $`V_𝐤(t)`$ are Bogoliubov coefficients given by:

$`U_𝐤(t)u_{𝐤,2}^r(t)u_{𝐤,1}^r(t)=v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)v_{𝐤,2}^r(t)=|U_𝐤|e^{i(\omega _{k,2}\omega _{k,1})t}`$ (98)
$`V_𝐤(t)ϵ_𝐤^ru_{𝐤,1}^r(t)v_{𝐤,2}^r(t)=ϵ_𝐤^ru_{𝐤,2}^r(t)v_{𝐤,1}^r(t)=|V_𝐤|e^{i(\omega _{k,2}+\omega _{k,1})t}`$ (99)
$`|U_𝐤|=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{k,1}+m_1}{2\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{k,2}+m_2}{2\omega _{k,2}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{|𝐤|^2}{(\omega _{k,1}+m_1)(\omega _{k,2}+m_2)}}\right)`$ (100)
$`|V_𝐤|=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{k,1}+m_1}{2\omega _{k,1}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{k,2}+m_2}{2\omega _{k,2}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{|𝐤|}{(\omega _{k,2}+m_2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{|𝐤|}{(\omega _{k,1}+m_1)}}\right)`$ (101)
satisfying $`|U_𝐤|^2+|V_𝐤|^2=1`$.

## Appendix B Chiral representation and useful relations

$`u_{k,i}^r=\chi _i\left(\begin{array}{c}(1+\frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤}{\omega _{k,i}+m_i})\xi ^r\\ \\ (1\frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤}{\omega _{k,i}+m_i})\xi ^r\end{array}\right),v_{k,i}^r=\chi _i\left(\begin{array}{c}(1+\frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤}{\omega _{k,i}+m_i})\xi ^r\\ \\ (1+\frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }𝐤}{\omega _{k,i}+m_i})\xi ^r\end{array}\right),r=1,2`$ (108)
$`\xi ^1=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right),\xi ^2=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right),\chi _i\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{k,i}+m_i}{4\omega _{k,i}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}},i=1,2.`$ (113)
$`v_{k,1}^1u_{k,2}^1=v_{k,1}^2u_{k,2}^2=2\chi _1\chi _2\left({\displaystyle \frac{k_3}{\omega _{k,1}+m_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_3}{\omega _{k,2}+m_2}}\right)`$ (114)
$`v_{k,1}^1u_{k,2}^2=\left(v_{k,1}^2u_{k,2}^1\right)^{}=2\chi _1\chi _2\left({\displaystyle \frac{k_{}}{\omega _{k,1}+m_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}}{\omega _{k,2}+m_2}}\right)`$ (115)
and $`u_{k,i}^ru_{k,j}^s=0`$ for $`rs`$. We define:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=1\mathrm{I}_4,\mathrm{\Gamma }^i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma ^i& 0\\ 0& \sigma ^i\end{array}\right),i=1,2,3.`$ (118)
Notice that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ can be decomposed as follows:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^i={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{4}{}}}\eta _j\eta _j^{}\lambda _i\lambda _i^{}\vartheta _i\vartheta _i^{}`$ (119)
with

$`\lambda _1=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 1\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right),\vartheta _1=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 1\\ 1\end{array}\right),\lambda _2=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ i\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right),\vartheta _2=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 1\\ i\end{array}\right)`$ (136)
## Appendix C Vacuum expectation value of the current

We show here that $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^\mu (𝐱,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=0`$. Let us consider for example the following quantity:

$`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|\alpha _{𝐩,e}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^s(t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=_{1,2}0|G_\theta (0)\alpha _{𝐩,e}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^s(t)G_\theta ^1(0)|0_{1,2}`$ (137)
Now let us define $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_{𝐤,e}^r(t)G_\theta (0)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)G_\theta ^1(0)`$ and h.c. Of course, $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_{𝐤,e}^r(0)=\alpha _{𝐤,1}^r`$. It is easy to realize that (see Eqs.(91)):

$`\{\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_{𝐤,e}^r(t),\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_{𝐩,e}^s(t^{})\}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}for𝐤𝐩,t,t^{},r,s.`$ (138)
This in turn implies that the quantity (137) vanishes for $`𝐤𝐩`$. Since this is valid for any two flavor operators, we only need to calculate the various terms for the (flavor) vev of the current for equal momenta. We thus write:

$`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^\mu (𝐱,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}={\displaystyle }d^3𝐤_{e,\mu }0|J_e^\mu (𝐤,t)|0_{e,\mu }=0.`$ (139)
The flavor vacuum is invariant under rotations, so we can choose without loss of generality the most suitable spatial reference frame for each of the terms in the momentum integration. In our case, this is the one for which $`𝐤`$ is collinear to $`(0,0,1)`$. In this frame, we obtain the relations:

$`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^s(t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=_{e,\mu }0|\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)\beta _{𝐤,e}^s(t)|0_{e,\mu }`$
$`=\delta ^{rs}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}|V_𝐤|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \left[\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _1+\omega _2}{2}}t\right)+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta |U_𝐤|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\omega _2t\right)\right]`$ (140)
$`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|\beta _{𝐤,e}^r(t)\alpha _{𝐤,e}^s(t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=\left({}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(t)\beta _{𝐬,e}^r(t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}\right)^{}`$
$`=\delta ^{rs}ϵ_𝐤^r\mathrm{sin}^2\theta e^{2i\omega _1t}|U_𝐤||V_𝐤|\left[\left(1+e^{2i\omega _1t}2e^{2i(\omega _1+\omega _2)t}\right)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +2i\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega _2t\right)\left(e^{i\omega _2t}|U_𝐤|^2+e^{i\omega _2t}|V_𝐤|^2\right)\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \right]`$ (141)
Because of relation (140) and the orthonormality relations for the spinors, we easily realize that $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^0(𝐤,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}=0`$.

As for $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^3(𝐤,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}`$, we need to consider:

$`u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^3u_{𝐤,i}^s(t)=v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^3v_{𝐤,i}^s(t)=\delta ^{rs}{\displaystyle \frac{k_3}{\omega _{k,i}}}`$ (142)
$`u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^3v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)=\left(v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^3u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\right)^{}=(1)^r\delta ^{rs}{\displaystyle \frac{m_i}{\omega _{k,i}}}e^{2i\omega _{k,i}t}`$ (143)
As a consequence of relations (140), (141) and (142), (143), the expectation value $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^3(𝐤,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}`$ is an odd function of $`𝐤`$ and therefore its integral vanishes.

Note that $`{}_{e,\mu }{}^{}0|J_e^{1,2}(𝐤,t)|0_{e,\mu }^{}`$ vanish identically in the chosen reference frame, because of:

$`u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^ju_{𝐤,i}^s(t)=v_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^jv_{𝐤,i}^s(t)=u_{𝐤,i}^r(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }^jv_{𝐤,i}^s(t)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},j=1,2.`$ (144)
## Appendix D Explicit Forms

$`𝒜_j^r(𝐱,t)=A{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}e^{i𝐤.𝐱}f(𝐤)\underset{s}{}\left[\eta _j^{}u_{𝐤,1}^s(t)\right]\delta ^{sr}X_{𝐤,e}(t)}`$ (145)
$`_j^r(𝐱,t)=A{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\underset{s}{}\left[\eta _j^{}v_{𝐤,1}^s(t)\right](\sigma 𝐤)^{sr}Y_{𝐤,e}(t)}`$ (146)
$`𝒜_1^1`$ $`=`$ $`A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1(1+k_3/\mathrm{\Omega }_1)X_{𝐤,e}(t);_1^1=A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1(k_3|𝐤|^2/\mathrm{\Omega }_1)Y_{𝐤,e}(t)`$
$`𝒜_2^1`$ $`=`$ $`𝒜_3^1=A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1(k_+/\mathrm{\Omega }_1)X_{𝐤,e}(t);_2^1=_3^1=A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1k_+Y_{𝐤,e}(t)`$
$`𝒜_4^1`$ $`=`$ $`A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1(1k_3/\mathrm{\Omega }_1)X_{𝐤,e}(t);_4^1=A{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}}e^{i𝐤𝐱}f(𝐤)\chi _1(|𝐤|^2/\mathrm{\Omega }_1+k_3)Y_{𝐤,e}(t)`$ (147)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1\omega _{k,1}+m_1`$ and $`k_+=k_1+ik_2`$ , $`k_{}=k_1ik_2`$.

For $`𝐤`$ collinear with $`\widehat{𝐤}(0,0,1)`$ or in the one dimensional case, we have

$`\{\beta _{𝐤,e}^s(t),\alpha _{𝐤,e}^r(0)\}=\delta ^{sr}ϵ_𝐤^r|U_𝐤||V_𝐤|\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \left[e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}e^{i\omega _{k,2}t}\right]e^{i\omega _{k,1}t}.`$ (148)