Quantum decoherence and neutrino data

Microscopic decoherence models for neutrinos are presented. The decoherence in these models has contributions not only from stochastic quantum gravity vacua, operating as an effective medium as well as from conventional uncertainties in the energy of the (anti)neutrino beam. All these contributions lead to damping factors modulating the oscillatory terms. On fitting all available current data including LSND and KamLAND spectral distortion results, we find that some (but not all) of the oscillatory terms are damped over an oscillation length L by a factor Gamma which is independent of L. The order of magnitude of Gamma favours the interpretation of decoherence due to conventional physics. However, there is still the puzzling aspect of the undamped terms, which currently remains unexplained. The microscopic nature of the models is key to reaching this conclusion. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.