Neutrino Oscillations at Supernova Core Bounce Generate the Strongest Gravitational-Wave Bursts

Abstract

During the core bounce of a supernova collapse resonant active-to-active (${\nu }_a\to {\nu }_a$), as well as active-to-sterile (${\nu }_a\to {\nu }_s$) neutrino ($\nu$) oscillations can take place. Besides, over this phase weak magnetism increases antineutrino ($\bar{\nu }$) mean free paths, and thus its luminosity. Because the oscillation feeds mass-energy into the target $\nu$ species, the large mass-squared difference between species (${\nu }_a\to {\nu }_s$) implies a huge amount of power to be given off as gravitational waves ($L_{\text{GWs}}\sim 10^{49}ergs$^{-1}$),duetoanisotropicbutcoherent$ν$flowovertheoscillationlength.Thisanisotropyinthe$ν$-fluxisdrivenbyboththeuniversalspin-rotationandthespin-magneticcoupling.Thenewspacetimestrainestimatedthiswayisstillseveralordersofmagnitudelargerthanthosefrom$ν$ diffusion (convection and cooling) or quadrupole moments of the neutron star matter. This new feature turns these bursts the more promising supernova gravitational-wave signal that may be detected by observatories as LIGO, VIRGO, etc., for distances far out to the VIRGO cluster of galaxies.

10 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of International Workshop on Astronomy and Relativistic Astrophysics, Olinda (Brazil), October 12-16 (2003), to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D

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• Evidence for oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos
• First Results from KamLAND: Evidence for Reactor Anti-Neutrino Disappearance
• Atmospheric neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande and parametric resonance in neutrino oscillations