2007/07/31 by Huaiyu Duan, George M. Fuller, J. Carlson +1
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/physrevlett.99.241802
published as Phys.Rev.Lett.99:241802,2007 · 4 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted by PRL
arxiv created 2007/12/14 · openalex publication_date 2007/12/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We examine a phenomenon recently predicted by numerical simulations of supernova neutrino flavor evolution: the swapping of supernova \ensuremathνe and \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ,\ensuremathτ energy spectra below (above) energy EC for the normal (inverted) neutrino mass hierarchy. We present the results of large-scale numerical calculations which show that in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy case, EC decreases as the assumed effective 2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi2 vacuum \ensuremathνe\ensuremath\rightleftharpoons\ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ,\ensuremathτ mixing angle (\ensuremath≃\ensuremathθ13) is decreased. In contrast, these calculations indicate that EC is essentially independent of the vacuum mixing angle in the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy case. With a good neutrino signal from a future galactic supernova, the above results could be used to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy even if \ensuremathθ13 is too small to be measured by terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments.