Neutrino-nucleon scattering in the neutrino-sphere

Abstract

We calculate the differential scattering rate for thermal neutrinos in a hot and dilute gas of interacting neutrons using linear response theory. The dynamical structure factors for density and spin fluctuations of the strongly interacting neutron matter, expected in the neutrino decoupling regions of supernovae and neutron star mergers, are calculated in the virial expansion for the first time. Correlations due to nucleon-nucleon interactions are taken into account using a pseudo-potential that reproduces measured nucleon-nucleon phase shifts, and we find that attractive s-wave interactions enhance the density response and suppress the spin response of neutron matter. The net effect of neutron correlations is to strongly suppress backscattering. Moreover, we find nearly exact scaling laws for the response functions, valid for the range $T=5-10$ MeV and q < 30 MeV, allowing us to obtain analytic results for the dynamic structure factors at second-order in the fugacity of the neutron gas. We find that the modification of scattering rates depends on the energy and momentum exchanged, implying that dynamical structure factors are essential to describe neutrino decoupling in supernovae and neutron star mergers.

References in corpus (11)

• Muon Creation in Supernova Matter Facilitates Neutrino-driven Explosions
• Virial expansion for a strongly correlated Fermi gas
• Neutrino-nucleon scattering in supernova matter from the virial expansion
• Impact of Neutrino Opacities on Core-Collapse Supernova Simulations
• The Neutrino Response of Low-Density Neutron Matter from the Virial Expansion
• Charged-current reactions in the supernova neutrino-sphere
• Unified approach to structure factors and neutrino processes in nucleon matter
• Spin Response and Neutrino Emissivity of Dense Neutron Matter
• Deep inelastic scattering on ultracold gases
• Neutrino scattering in supernovae and spin correlations of a unitary gas
• Core-Collapse Supernova Simulations including Neutrino Interactions from the Virial EOS

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Charged-Current Muonic Reactions in Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Neutrinos and nucleosynthesis of elements
• Implications of Symmetry and Pressure in Friedmann Cosmology. II. Stellar Remnant Black Hole Mass Function
• Spin Polarized Non-Relativistic Fermions in 1+1 Dimensions
• Structure Factors for Hot Neutron Matter from Ab Initio Lattice Simulations with High-Fidelity Chiral Interactions
• A Survey of Nuclear Pasta in the Intermediate Density Regime: Structure Functions for Neutrino Scattering
• Structure Factors of Neutron Matter at Finite Temperature
• Structure Factors of The Unitary Gas Under Supernova Conditions
• Neutron Stars as a Probe of Cosmic Neutrino Background
• Neutrino-Neutron Scattering Opacities in Supernova Matter