Radiative Neutrino Decay in Media

Abstract

In this letter we introduce a new method to determine the radiative neutrino decay rate in the presence of a medium. Our approach is based on the generalisation of the optical theorem at finite temperature and density. Differently from previous works on this subject, our method allows to account for dispersive and dissipative electromagnetic properties of the medium. Some inconsistencies that are present in the literature are pointed-out and corrected here. We shortly discuss the relevance of our results for neutrino evolution in the early universe.

11 pages, 3 encapsulated figures

References in corpus (3)

• Bound on the neutrino magnetic moment from chirality flip in supernovae
• Neutrinos with Magnetic Moment: Depolarization Rate in Plasma
• Radiative neutrino decay in hot media

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Electromagnetic neutrinos in laboratory experiments and astrophysics
• Neutrino electromagnetic interactions: a window to new physics
• Transition Radiation from the Neutrino-Photon Interaction in Matter
• Neutrino gravitational decay in a medium
• Rates of neutrino conversion and decay in hot and dense QED plasma