Neutrino oscillations in matter: from microscopic to macroscopic description

Neutrino flavour transmutations in nonuniform matter are described by a Schrodinger-like evolution equation with coordinate-dependent potential. In all the derivations of this equation it is assumed that the potential, which is due to coherent forward scattering of neutrinos on matter constituents, is a continuous function of coordinate that changes slowly over the distances of the order of the neutrino de Broglie wavelength. This tacitly assumes that some averaging of the microscopic potential (which takes into account the discrete nature of the scatterers) has been performed. The averaging, however, must be applied to the microscopic evolution equation as a whole and not just to the potential. Such an averaging has never been explicitly carried out. We fill this gap by considering the transition from the microscopic to macroscopic neutrino evolution equation through a proper averaging procedure. We discuss some subtleties related to this procedure and establish the applicability domain of the standard macroscopic evolution equation. This, in particular, allows us to answer the question of when neutrino propagation in rarefied media (such as e.g. low-density gases or interstellar or intergalactic media) can be considered within the standard theory of neutrino flavour evolution in matter.