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The different mass states of neutrinos are generally named $\nu_1, \nu_2, \nu_3$.

By comparison, the names of quark mass states (up, down, strange, and so on) or the names of mass states of charged leptons (electron, muon, tau(on)) appear more distinctive, or whimsical.

Have there been perhaps any suggestions of correspondingly less generic "proper names" for each of the (three distinct) neutrino mass states?

Qmechanic
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user12262
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1 Answers1

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No. The data is analyzed with $\nu_1, \nu_2,\nu_3 $, well defined by their mixing matrices in the PDG, but, before the resolution of the hierarchy, they cannot be identified firmly with the classroom poster placeholder names $\nu_L, \nu_M,\nu_H $, Lightest, Middle, Heaviest.

In the normal hierarchy, the two sets identify ordinally; ultimately, after the resolution of the hierarchy, somebody will think of good names--but not as good as my linked answer's: Huey, Dewey, and Ratatouille, needless to say...

The PDG poster above is a vast advance w.r.t. the older version of that poster featuring the oxymoronic weak-charged-current "eigen"states $\nu_e,\nu_\mu,\nu_\tau$, regrettably still featured in dark corners of WP, and often referred to as "lepton flavor eigenstates", an absurd and confusing name indicating lepton flavor is thereby ipso facto violated!!

Cosmas Zachos
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