Series expansions for three-flavor neutrino oscillation probabilities in matter

Abstract

We present a number of complete sets of series expansion formulas for neutrino oscillation probabilities in matter of constant density for three flavors. In particular, we study expansions in the mass hierarchy parameter $\alpha \equiv \Delta m_{21}^2/\Delta m_{31}^2$ and mixing parameter $s_{13}\equiv \sin {\theta }_{13}$ up to second order and expansions only in $\alpha$ and only in $s_{13}$ up to first order. For each type of expansion we also present the corresponding formulas for neutrino oscillations in vacuum.We perform a detailed analysis of the accuracy of the different sets of series expansion formulas and investigate which type of expansion is most accurate in different regions of the parameter space spanned by the neutrino energy E, the baseline length L, and the expansion parameters $\alpha$ and $s_{13}$.We also present the formulas for series expansions in $\alpha$ and in $s_{13}$ up to first order for the case of arbitrary matter density profiles. Furthermore, it is shown that in general all the 18 neutrino and antineutrino oscillation probabilities can be expressed through just two independent probabilites.

Comments: 36 pages, 7 figures, minor improvements, typos in Eqs. (58) and (59) corrected, version published in JHEP