Effects of Random Density Fluctuations on Matter-Enhanced Neutrino Flavor Transitions in Supernovae and Implications for Supernova Dynamics and Nucleosynthesis

Abstract

We calculate the effects of random density fluctuations on twoneutrino flavor transformations ( ø(¯) * ) e ) in the post-core-bounce supernova environment. In particular, we follow numerically the flavor evolution of neutrino states propagating through a stochastic field of density fluctuations. We examine the approach to neutrino flavor depolarization, and study the effects of this phenomenon in both the early shock reheating epoch and the later r-process nucleosynthesis epoch. Our results suggest that significant fluctuation-induced neutrino flavor depolarization effects occur in these environments only when the zero-order (without density fluctautions) evolution of the neutrino states includes adiabatic propagation through resonances (mass level crossings). In the shock reheating epoch, depolarization Permanent address: Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0319. y Permanent address: Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madi..