We discuss a possibility that the so-called reactor antineutrino anomaly can be, at least in part, explained by applying a quantum field-theoretical approach to neutrino oscillations, which in particular predicts a small deviation from the classical
inverse-square law at short but macroscopic distances between the neutrino source and detector. An extensive statistical analysis of the reactor data is performed to examine this speculation.
We consider a class of models for the relativistic covariant wave packets which can be used as asymptotically free in and out states in the quantum field theoretical formalisms for description of the neutrino flavor oscillation phenomenon. We demonst
rate that the new asymmetric wave packet (AWP) is an appropriate alternative for the more convenient symmetric wave packets, like the so-called relativistic Gaussian packet (RGP) widely used in the QFT-based approaches to neutrino oscillations. We show that RGP is not a particular case of AWP, although many properties of these models are almost identical in the quasistable regime. We discuss some features of AWP distinguishing it from RGP.
