2016/12/31 by Luke F. Roberts, Sanjay Reddy
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Charged current #Current (fluid) #Degeneracy (biology) #Field (mathematics) #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Magnetic field #Neutral current #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutron star #Nuclear matter #Nuclear physics #Opacity #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Supernova #astro-ph.HE #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevc.95.045807
published as Phys. Rev. C 95, 045807 (2017) · 20 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to PRC
arxiv created 2017/04/06 · openalex publication_date 2017/04/27 · arxiv updated 2017/05/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We derive the charged current absorption rate of electron and antielectron neutrinos in dense matter using a fully relativistic approach valid at arbitrary matter degeneracy. We include mean field energy shifts due to nuclear interactions and the corrections due to weak magnetism. The rates are derived both from the familiar Fermi's golden rule and from the techniques of finite temperature field theory, and are shown to be equivalent. In various limits, these results can also be used to calculate neutral current opacities. We find that some pieces of the response have been left out in previous derivations and their contribution at high density can be significant. Useful formulas and detailed derivations are presented and we provide a new open-source implementation of these opacities for use in radiation hydrodynamic simulations of core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers.