Field theory description of neutrino oscillations

Abstract: We review various field theory approaches to the description of neutrino oscillations in vacuum and external fields. First we discuss a relativistic quantum mechanics based approach which involves the temporal evolution of massive neutrinos. To describe the dynamics of the neutrinos system we use exact solutions of wave equations in presence of an external field. It allows one to exactly take into account both the characteristics of neutrinos and the properties of an external field. In particular, we examine flavor oscillations an vacuum and in background matter as well as spin flavor oscillations in matter under the influence of an external electromagnetic field. Moreover we consider the situation of hypothetical nonstandard neutrino interactions with background fermions. In the case of ultrarelativistic particles we reproduce an effective Hamiltonian which is used in the standard quantum mechanical approach for the description of neutrino oscillations. The corrections to the quantum mechanical Hamiltonian are also discussed. Then we study a spatial evolution of mixed massive neutrinos emitted by classical sources. This method seems to be more realistic since it predicts neutrino oscillations in space. Besides oscillations among different neutrino flavors, we also study transitions between particle and antiparticle states. Finally we use the quantum field theory method, which involves virtual neutrinos propagating between production and detection points, to describe particle-antiparticle transitions of Majorana neutrinos in presence of background matter.