Ultra-high energy neutrino dispersion in plasma and radiative transition ${\nu }_L\to {\nu }_R+\gamma$

Abstract

Qualitative analysis of additional energy of neutrino and antineutrino in plasma is performed. A general expression for the neutrino self-energy operator is obtained in the case of ultra-high energies when the local limit of the weak interaction is not valid. The neutrino and antineutrino additional energy in plasma is calculated using the dependence of the $W$ and $Z$--boson propagators on the momentum transferred. The kinematical region for the neutrino radiative transition (the so-called "neutrino spin light") is established for some important astrophysical cases. For high energy neutrino and antineutrino, dominating transition channels in plasma, ${\nu }_e+e^{+}\to W^{+}$, ${\bar{\nu }}_e+e^{-}\to W^{-}$ and ${\bar{\nu }}_{\ell }+{\nu }_{\ell }\to Z$, are indicated.

12 pages, LaTeX, 3 EPS figures, submitted to Int. J. Mod. Phys. A; version 2: typos corrected, presentation improved, the version to be published