COHERENCE OF NEUTRINO OSCILLATIONS IN THE WAVE-PACKET APPROACH - ART.NO. 017301

The temporal and spatial coherence widths of the microscopic process b y which a neutrino is detected are incorporated in the quantum mechani cal wave packet treatment of neutrino oscillations, confirming the obs ervation of Kiers, Nussinov, and Weiss that an accurate measurement of the neutrino energy in the detection process can increase the coheren ce length. However, the wave packet treatment presented here shows tha t the coherence length has an upper bound, determined by the neutrino energy and the mass-squared difference, beyond which the coherence of the oscillation process is lost. [S0556-2821(98)01415-5].