Violation of the Leggett-Garg Inequality in Neutrino Oscillations

The Leggett-Garg inequality, an analogue of Bell's inequality involving correlations of measurements on a system at different times, stands as one of the hallmark tests of quantum mechanics against classical predictions. The phenomenon of neutrino oscillations should adhere to quantum-mechanica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2016-07, Vol.117 (5), p.050402-050402, Article 050402
Main Authors: Formaggio, J A, Kaiser, D I, Murskyj, M M, Weiss, T E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analogue
Bell's inequality
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Inequalities
Neutrinos
Oscillations
Quantum mechanics
Stands
Supports
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Summary:The Leggett-Garg inequality, an analogue of Bell's inequality involving correlations of measurements on a system at different times, stands as one of the hallmark tests of quantum mechanics against classical predictions. The phenomenon of neutrino oscillations should adhere to quantum-mechanical predictions and provide an observable violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality. We demonstrate how oscillation phenomena can be used to test for violations of the classical bound by performing measurements on an ensemble of neutrinos at distinct energies, as opposed to a single neutrino at distinct times. A study of the MINOS experiment's data shows a greater than 6σ violation over a distance of 735 km, representing the longest distance over which either the Leggett-Garg inequality or Bell's inequality has been tested.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.050402