Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix

In particle physics, the Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix (PMNS matrix), Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix (MNS matrix), lepton mixing matrix, or neutrino mixing matrix is a unitarymixing matrix which contains information on the mismatch of quantum states of neutrinos when they propagate freely and when they take part in the weak interactions. It is a model of neutrino oscillation. This matrix was introduced in 1962 by Ziro Maki, Masami Nakagawa and Shoichi Sakata, to explain the neutrino oscillations predicted by Bruno Pontecorvo.

The Standard Model of particle physics contains three generations or "flavors" of neutrinos, ν_e, ν_μ, and ν_τ labeled according to the charged leptons with which they partner in the charged-current weak interaction. These three eigenstates of the weak interaction form a complete, orthonormal basis for the Standard Model neutrino. Similarly, one can construct an eigenbasis out of three neutrino states of definite mass, ν₁, ν₂, and ν₃, which diagonalize the neutrino's free-particle Hamiltonian. Observations of neutrino oscillation have experimentally determined that for neutrinos, like the quarks, these two eigenbases are not the same - they are "rotated" relative to each other. Each flavor state can thus be written as a superposition of mass eigenstates, and vice versa. The PMNS matrix, with components U_ai corresponding to the amplitude of mass eigenstate i in flavor a, parameterizes the unitary transformation between the two bases:

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