Noncyclic geometric phase for neutrino oscillation

Abstract

We provide explicit formulae for the noncyclic geometric phases or Pancharatnam phases of neutrino oscillations. Since Pancharatnam phase is a generalization of the Berry phase, our results generalize the previous findings for Berry phase in a recent paper [Phys. Lett. B, 466 (1999) 262]. Unlike the Berry phase, the noncyclic geometric phase offers distinctive advantage in terms of measurement and prediction. In particular, for three-flavor mixing, our explicit formula offers an alternative means of determining the CP-violating phase. Our results can also be extended easily to explore geometric phase associated with neutron-antineutron oscillations.