Simple Picture for Neutrino Flavor Transformation in Supernovae

Abstract

We can understand many recently-discovered features of flavor evolution in dense, self-coupled supernova neutrino and antineutrino systems with a simple, physical scheme consisting of two quasi-static solutions. One solution closely resembles the conventional, adiabatic single neutrino Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) mechanism, in that neutrinos and antineutrinos remain in mass eigenstates as they evolve in flavor space. The other solution is analogous to the regular precession of a gyroscopic pendulum in flavor space, and has been discussed extensively in recent works. Results of recent numerical studies are best explained with combinations of these solutions in the following general scenario: (1) Near the neutrino sphere, the MSW-like many-body solution obtains. (2) Depending on neutrino vacuum mixing parameters, luminosities, energy spectra, and the matter density profile, collective flavor transformation in the nutation mode develops and drives neutrinos away from the MSW-like evolution and toward regular precession. (3) Neutrino and antineutrino flavors roughly evolve according to the regular precession solution until neutrino densities are low. In the late stage of the precession solution, a stepwise swapping develops in the energy spectra of ${\nu }_e$ and ${\nu }_{\mu }/{\nu }_{\tau }$. We also discuss some subtle points regards adiabaticity in flavor transformation in dense neutrino systems.

11 pages, 2 figure, retex4 format. Split fig.1 into two figures. Minor corrections. Version accepted by PRD

References in corpus (4)

• Simulation of Coherent Non-Linear Neutrino Flavor Transformation in the Supernova Environment I: Correlated Neutrino Trajectories
• Coherent Development of Neutrino Flavor in the Supernova Environment
• Analysis of Collective Neutrino Flavor Transformation in Supernovae
• Neutrino-Neutrino Interactions and Flavor Mixing in Dense Matter

Cited by in corpus (41)

• Collective neutrino flavor transitions in supernovae and the role of trajectory averaging
• Multiple Spectral Splits of Supernova Neutrinos
• Role of dense matter in collective supernova neutrino transformations
• Adiabaticity and spectral splits in collective neutrino transformations
• Neutrino Mass Hierarchy and Stepwise Spectral Swapping of Supernova Neutrino Flavors
• Neutrino scattering and flavor transformation in supernovae
• Fast Neutrino Flavor Conversion Modes in Multidimensional Core-collapse Supernova Models: the Role of the Asymmetric Neutrino Distributions
• Flavor Evolution of the Neutronization Neutrino Burst from an O-Ne-Mg Core-Collapse Supernova
• Spectral split in prompt supernova neutrino burst: Analytic three-flavor treatment
• Stepwise Spectral Swapping with Three Neutrino Flavors
• Identifying neutrino mass hierarchy at extremely small theta(13) through Earth matter effects in a supernova signal
• Evolution of collisional neutrino flavor instabilities in spherically symmetric supernova models
• Mu-tau neutrino refraction and collective three-flavor transformations in supernovae
• Collective neutrino oscillations in non-spherical geometry
• Low-energy spectral features of supernova (anti)neutrinos in inverted hierarchy
• Damping the neutrino flavor pendulum by breaking homogeneity
• Spectral splits and entanglement entropy in collective neutrino oscillations
• Simulating nonlinear neutrino flavor evolution
• Spurious instabilities in multiangle simulations of collective flavor conversion
• Three Flavor Neutrino Oscillations in Matter: Flavor Diagonal Potentials, the Adiabatic Basis and the CP phase
• Collective neutrino oscillations with tensor networks using a time-dependent variational principle
• Effect of Collective Flavor Oscillations on the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background
• Multi-Angle Simulation of Flavor Evolution in the Neutrino Neutronization Burst From an O-Ne-Mg Core-Collapse Supernova
• General-Relativistic Quantum-Kinetics Neutrino Transport
• Stationary solutions for fast flavor oscillations of a homogeneous dense neutrino gas
• Many-body effects of collective neutrino oscillations
• Neutrino Magnetic Moment, CP Violation and Flavor Oscillations in Matter
• Neutrino Oscillations Within the Induced Gravitational Collapse Paradigm of Long Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Theoretical Overview of Neutrino Properties
• Symmetries in collective neutrino oscillations
• Stimulated neutrino transformation through turbulence on a changing density profile and application to supernovae
• Prospects for Neutrino Spin Coherence in Supernovae
• Signatures of collective and matter effects on supernova neutrinos at large detectors
• Geometric phases in neutrino oscillations with nonlinear refraction
• Realistic Earth matter effects and a method to acquire information about small θ_{13} in the detection of supernova neutrinos
• Two-photon interactions with Majorana fermions
• Multi-angle effects in collective supernova neutrino oscillations
• Subgrid modeling of neutrino oscillations in astrophysics
• Exploring entanglement and spectral split correlations in three-flavor collective neutrino oscillations
• Moment equations of neutrinos in supernova
• Emission angle distribution and flavor transformation of supernova neutrinos