Neutrino flavor instabilities in a time-dependent supernova model

A dense neutrino medium such as that inside a core-collapse supernova can experience collective flavor conversion or oscillations because of the neutral-current weak interaction among the neutrinos. This phenomenon has been studied in a restricted, stationary supernova model which possesses the (spatial) spherical symmetry about the center of the supernova and the (directional) axial symmetry around the radial direction. Recently it has been shown that these spatial and directional symmetries can be broken spontaneously by collective neutrino oscillations. In this paper we analyze the neutrino flavor instabilities in a time-dependent supernova model. Our results show that collective neutrino oscillations start at approximately the same radius in both the stationary and time-dependent supernova models unless there exist very rapid variations in local physical conditions on timescales of a few microseconds or shorter. Our results also suggest that collective neutrino oscillations can vary rapidly with time in the regimes where they do occur which need to be studied in time-dependent supernova models.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in PL

Flavor instabilities in the neutrino line model

A dense neutrino medium can experience collective flavor oscillations through nonlinear neutrino-neutrino refraction. To make this multi-dimensional flavor transport problem more tractable, all existing studies have assumed certain symmetries (e.g., the spatial homogeneity and directional isotropy in the early universe) to reduce the dimensionality of the problem. In this work we show that, if both the directional and spatial symmetries are not enforced in the neutrino line model, collective oscillations can develop in the physical regimes where the symmetry-preserving oscillation modes are stable. Our results suggest that collective neutrino oscillations in real astrophysical environments (such as core-collapse supernovae and black-hole accretion discs) can be qualitatively different from the predictions based on existing models in which spatial and directional symmetries are artificially imposed.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Neutrino Processes in Strong Magnetic Fields

The processes of electron neutrino capture on neutron and electron anti-neutrino capture on proton, and their reverse processes provide the dominant mechanisms for heating and cooling the material below the stalled shock in a core-collapse supernova. We summarize the major effects of strong magnetic fields on the rates of the above reactions and illustrate these effects with a simple supernova model. Due to parity violation of weak interaction the heating rates are asymmetric even for a uniform magnetic field. The cooling rates are also asymmetric for nonuniform fields. The most dramatic effect of strong magnetic fields of 10^16 G is suppression of the cooling rates by changing the equations of state through the phase space of electrons and positrons.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, talk given at INT workshop "Open Issues in Understanding Core Collapse Supernovae," Seattle, June 200

A simple model for spectral swapping of supernova neutrinos

Neutrinos emitted from a core-collapse supernova can experience collective flavor transformation because of high neutrino fluxes. As a result, neutrinos of different flavors can have their energy spectra (partially) swapped, a phenomenon known as the (stepwise) spectral swapping or spectral split. We give a brief review of a simple model that explains this phenomenon.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, prepared for the proceedings of CIPANP 09, San Diego, USA, March 26-31, 200