2006/06/30 by Huaiyu Duan, George M. Fuller, J. Carlson +2 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.74.105014
published as Phys.Rev. D74 (2006) 105014 · 23 pages, 12 figures, revtex4 format. Version accepted by PRD
arxiv created 2006/11/16 · openalex publication_date 2006/11/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present results of large-scale numerical simulations of the evolution of neutrino and antineutrino flavors in the region above the late-time post-supernova-explosion proto-neutron star. Our calculations are the first to allow explicit flavor evolution histories on different neutrino trajectories and to self-consistently couple flavor development on these trajectories through forward scattering-induced quantum coupling. Employing the atmospheric-scale neutrino mass-squared difference (|\ensuremathδm2|\ensuremath≃3\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10^\ensuremath-3 eV2) and values of \ensuremathθ13 allowed by current bounds, we find transformation of neutrino and antineutrino flavors over broad ranges of energy and luminosity in roughly the ``bi-polar'' collective mode. We find that this large-scale flavor conversion, largely driven by the flavor off-diagonal neutrino-neutrino forward scattering potential, sets in much closer to the proto-neutron star than simple estimates based on flavor-diagonal potentials and Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein evolution would indicate. In turn, this suggests that models of r-process nucleosynthesis sited in the neutrino-driven wind could be affected substantially by active-active neutrino flavor mixing, even with the small measured neutrino mass-squared differences.