Self-Refraction of Supernova Neutrinos: Mixed Spectra and Three-Flavor Instabilities

2010/01/31 by Alexander Friedland · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Flavor #Instability #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Spectral line #Supernova #Type II supernova #astro-ph.SR #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.104.191102

published as Phys.Rev.Lett.104:191102,2010 · 7 pages, 5 figures; updated to match the PRL version

arxiv created 2010/05/11 · openalex publication_date 2010/05/11 · arxiv updated 2010/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Neutrinos in a core-collapse supernova undergo coherent flavor transformations in their own background. We explore this phenomenon during the cooling stage of the explosion. Our three-flavor calculations reveal qualitatively new effects compared to a two-flavor analysis. These effects are especially clearly seen for the inverted mass hierarchy: we find a different pattern of spectral "swaps" in the neutrino spectrum and a novel "mixed" spectrum for the antineutrinos. A brief discussion of the relevant physics is presented, including the instability of the two-flavor evolution trajectory, the three-flavor pattern of spectral "swaps," and partial nonadiabaticity of the evolution.

Citations

• Do many-particle neutrino interactions cause a novel coherent effect?
• Role of dense matter in collective supernova neutrino transformations
• Simulation of coherent nonlinear neutrino flavor transformation in the supernova environment: Correlated neutrino trajectories
• The Hydrodynamic Behavior of Supernovae Explosions
• Neutrino flavor conversion in a neutrino background: Single- versus multi-particle description
• The Physics of Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Self-induced conversion in dense neutrino gases: Pendulum in flavor space
• Resonant neutrino oscillations and stellar collapse
• Effects of supernova feedback on the formation of galaxy discs
• Observation of a neutrino burst from the supernova SN1987A
• Neutrino flavor evolution near a supernova's core
• Synthesis of the Elements in Stars
• Construction and analysis of a simplified many-body neutrino model

Cited by

• An optimization-based approach to calculating neutrino flavor evolution
• Entanglement and collective flavor oscillations in a dense neutrino gas
• Collective Neutrino Oscillations