Cerenkov radiation by neutrinos in a supernova core

Abstract

Neutrinos with a magnetic dipole moment propagating in a medium with a velocity larger than the phase velocity of light emit photons by the Cerenkov process. The Cerenkov radiation is a helicity flip process via which a left-handed neutrino in a supernova core may change into a sterile right-handed one and free-stream out of the core. Assuming that the luminosity of such sterile right-handed neutrinos is less than $10^{53}$ ergs/sec gives an upper bound on the neutrino magnetic dipole moment ${\mu }_{\nu }<0.2\times 10^{-13}{\mu }_B$. This is two orders of magnitude more stringent than the previously established bounds on ${\mu }_{\nu }$ from considerations of supernova cooling rate by right-handed neutrinos.

Revised version to appear in Physical Review Letters

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Neutrino electromagnetic properties
• Spin light of neutrino in matter and electromagnetic fields
• Cherenkov radiation by massless neutrinos in a magnetic field
• Neutrinos with Magnetic Moment: Depolarization Rate in Plasma
• Neutrino electromagnetic interactions: a window to new physics
• Photon Dispersion in a Supernova Core
• Nucleon contribution to the neutrino electromagnetic vertex in matter
• Nucleon effects on the photon dispersion relations in matter
• Comment on "Cherenkov Radiation by Neutrinos in a Supernova Core"