Do Small-Mass Neutrinos Participate in Gauge Transformations?

Abstract EN

Neutrino oscillation experiments presently suggest that neutrinos have a small but finite mass.

If neutrinos have mass, there should be a Lorentz frame in which they can be brought to rest.

This paper discusses how Wigner’s little groups can be used to distinguish between massive and massless particles.

We derive a representation of the S L ( 2 , c ) group which separates out the two sets of spinors: one set is gauge dependent and the other set is gauge invariant and represents polarized neutrinos.

We show that a similar calculation can be done for the Dirac equation.

In the large-momentum/zero-mass limit, the Dirac spinors can be separated into large and small components.

The large components are gauge invariant, while the small components are not.

These small components represent spin- 1 / 2 non-zero-mass particles.

If we renormalize the large components, these gauge invariant spinors represent the polarization of neutrinos.

Massive neutrinos cannot be invariant under gauge transformations.