# Correlated Wave Packet treatment of Neutrino and Neutral Meson Oscillations

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank D. Dorfan and A. Seiden for very stimulating discussions, critical questions, and a careful reading of this manuscript, and T. Goldman and Ann Nelson for several useful comments.

## Footnotes

1. The justification for Eq. 7 is that after one of the two particles has been detected, i.e. $`t=t_1`$ or $`t=t_2`$, its state does not continue to evolve in time. The generalized wavefunction $`\psi (x_1,x_2,t_1,t_2)`$, Eq. 14 can then be interpreted as the probability amplitude for correlated events which occur at the two different space-time points $`(x_1,t_1)`$ and $`(x_2,t_2)`$, and is equivalent to the amplitude method in , and the formalism in . It can be shown that this procedure is equivalent to the “collapse” of the wavefunction language, which is the conventional description when measurements take place at different times, although it is preferable not to invoke this awkward language.
2. For $`t_1,t_2t_d`$, the condition $`t_{12}=(\overline{v}_1t_1\overline{v}_2t_2x_1+x_2)/\overline{v}_{12}=t_d`$ connects the decay time $`t_d`$ of the source to the space-time coordinates of the decay particles. It corresponds to the classical relation for the relative coordinates of these particles which can be understood on the physical grounds that these particles are created in a region of negligible small spatial dimension, without violating the uncertainty principle because $`t_d`$ is a stochastic variable. This relation has also been obtained in , but under the invalid assumption that the source and decay particles follow classical trajectories exactly. In the case that the decay can occur over a range of values $`0t_dt_{max}`$, one must take an average over the probability distribution integrated over this range provide there are no measurements on the recoil particle which constrain the possible values of $`t_{12}`$. In practice $`t_{max}=d/\overline{v}`$, where $`d`$ is the distance between the target where the unstable particle is created, and a beam stop where nuclear reactions annihilate it.