Quasi-Classical Gravity Effect on Neutrino Oscillations in a Gravitational Field of a Heavy Astrophysical Object

Figure 4

Here the difference due to the Earth matter effect in the observed number of electrons is plotted (assuming an initial flux that only contains electron neutrinos). The difference is defined to be the ratio of the observed number of electron type neutrinos for the case where there is a maximal Earth matter effect (impact parameter is ) and the case where there is no earth matter effect. Shown are two curves, black solid for (propagation decoherence case) and blue dotted for the (quantum decoherence case). This calculation was done with a uniform distribution of decoherent electron neutrinos. The difference due to the Earth matter effect may be higher than 300%. In the case of fixed , the flavor composition of the neutrino flux is minimally affected by the Earth at low energies.