Neutrino propagation in noncommutative spacetimes

Abstract: One-loop theta-exact quantum corrections to the neutrino propagator are computed in noncommutative U*(1) gauge-theory based on Seiberg-Witten maps. Our closed form results show that the one-loop correction contains a hard 1/epsilon UV divergence, as well as a logarithmic IR-divergent term of the type ln sqrt(theta p)^2, thus considerably softening the usual UV/IR mixing phenomenon. We show that both of these problematic terms vanish for a certain choice of the noncommutative parameter theta which preserves unitarity. We find non-perturbative modifications of the neutrino dispersion relations which are assymptotically independent of the scale of noncommutativity in both the low and high energy limits and may allow superluminal propagation. Finally, we demonstrate how the prodigious freedom in Seiberg-Witten maps may be used to affect neutrino propagation in a profound way.