Search

We apply the model of stimulated neutrino transitions to neutrinos traveling through turbulence on a nonconstant density profile. We describe a method to predict the location of large amplitude transitions and demonstrate the effectiveness of this method by comparing to numerical calculations using a model supernova (SN) profile. The important wavelength scales of turbulence, both those that stimulate neutrino transformations and those that suppress them, are presented and discussed. We then examine the effects of changing the parameters of the turbulent spectrum, specifically the root-mean-square amplitude and cutoff wavelength, and show how the stimulated transitions model offers an explanation for the increase in both the amplitude and number of transitions with large amplitude turbulence, as well as a suppression or absence of transitions for long cutoff wavelengths. The method can also be used to predict the location of transitions between antineutrino states which, in the normal hierarchy we are using, will not undergo Mikheev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein transitions. Finally, the stimulated neutrino transitions method is applied to a turbulent 2D supernova simulation and explains the minimal observed effect on neutrino oscillations in the simulation as being due to excessive long wavelength modes suppressing transitions and the absence of modes that fulfill the parametric resonance condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive an analytical solution for the flavor evolution of a neutrino through a turbulent density profile which is found to accurately predict the amplitude and transition wavelength of numerical solutions on a case-by-case basis. The evolution is seen to strongly depend upon those Fourier modes in the turbulence which are approximately the same as the splitting between neutrino eigenvalues. Transitions are strongly enhanced by those Fourier modes in the turbulence which are approximately the same as the splitting between neutrino eigenvalues. We also find a suppression of transitions due to the long wavelength modes when the ratio of their amplitude and the wave number is of order, or greater than, the first root of the Bessel function J0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition probabilities describing the evolution of a neutrino with a given energy along some ray through a turbulent supernova profile are random variates unique to each ray. If the proto-neutron-star source of the neutrinos were a point, then one might expect the evolution of the turbulence would cause the flavor composition of the neutrinos to vary in time i.e. the flavor would scintillate. But in reality the proto-neutron star is not a point source--it has a size of order ~10 km, so the neutrinos emitted from different points at the source will each have seen different turbulence. The finite source size will reduce the correlation of the flavor transition probabilities along different trajectories and reduce the magnitude of the flavor scintillation. To determine whether the finite size of the proto-neutron star will preclude flavor scintillation, we calculate the correlation of the neutrino flavor transition probabilities through turbulent supernova profiles as a function of the separation Sx between the emission points. The correlation will depend upon the power spectrum used for the turbulence, and we consider two cases: when the power spectrum is isotropic, and the more realistic case of a power spectrum which is anisotropic on large scales and isotropic on small. Although it is dependent on a number of uncalibrated parameters, we show the supernova neutrino source is not of sufficient size to significantly blur flavor scintillation in all mixing channels when using an isotropic spectrum, and this same result holds when using an anisotropic spectrum, except when we greatly reduce the similarity of the turbulence along parallel trajectories separated by ~10 km or less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition probabilities for a single neutrino emitted from a point proto-neutron source after passage through a turbulent supernova density profile have been found to be random variates drawn from parent distributions whose properties depend upon the stage of the explosion, the neutrino energy and mixing parameters, the observed channel, and the properties of the turbulence such as the amplitude C⋆. In this paper we examine the consequences of the recently measured mixing angle ?I3 upon the neutrino flavor transformation in supernova when passing through turbulence, in order to provide some clarity as to what one should expect in the way of turbulence effects in the next supernova neutrino burst signal. We find that the measurements of a relatively large value of ?I3 means the neutrinos are relatively immune to small, C⋆ S 1%, amplitude turbulence but as C⋆ increases the turbulence effects grow rapidly and spread to all mixing channels. For C⋆ s 10% the turbulence effects in the high density resonance mixing channels are independent of ?I3 but nonresonant mixing channels are more sensitive to turbulence when ?I3 is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to decode the neutrino burst signal from a Galactic core-collapse supernova (ccSN) and reveal the complicated inner workings of the explosion we need a thorough understanding of the neutrino flavor evolution from the proto-neutron star outwards. The flavor content of the signal evolves due to both neutrino collective effects and matter effects which can lead to a highly interesting interplay and distinctive spectral features. In this paper we investigate the supernova neutrino flavor evolution in three different progenitors and include collective flavor effects, the evolution of the Mikheyev, Smirnov & Wolfenstein (MSW) conversion due to the shock wave passage through the star, and the impact of turbulence. We consider both normal and inverted neutrino mass hierarchies and a value of ?13 close to the current experimental measurements. In the Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium (ONeMg) supernova we find that the impact of turbulence is both brief and slight during a window of 1-2 seconds post bounce. This is because the shock races through the star extremely quickly and the turbulence amplitude is expected to be small, less than 10%, since these stars do not require multidimensional physics to explode. Thus the spectral features of collective and shock effects in the neutrino signals from Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium supernovae may be almost turbulence free making them the easiest to interpret. For the more massive progenitors we again find that small amplitude turbulence, up to 10%, leads to a minimal modification of the signal, and the emerging neutrino spectra retain both collective and MSW features. However, when larger amounts of turbulence is added, 30% and 50%, which is justified by the requirement of multi-dimensional physics in order to make these stars explode, the features of collective and shock wave effects in the high (H) density resonance channel are almost completely obscured at late times. Yet at the same time we find the other mixing channels--the low (L) density resonance channel and the nonresonant channels--begin to develop turbulence signatures. Large amplitude turbulent motions in the outer layers of more massive, iron core-collapse supernovae may obscure the most obvious fingerprints of collective and shock wave effects in the neutrino signal but cannot remove them completely, and additionally bring about new features in the signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has recently been demonstrated analytically that the two-point correlation function for pairs of neutrinos may contain information about the size of the protoneutron star formed in a Galactic core-collapse supernova. The information about the size of the source emerges via the neutrino equivalent of intensity interferometry originally used by Hanbury-Brown and Twiss with photons to measure the radii of stars. However the analytic demonstration of neutrino intensity interferometry with supernova neutrinos made a number of approximations: that the two neutrinos had equal energies, that the neutrinos were emitted at simultaneous times from two points and that they were detected simultaneously at two detection points that formed a plane with the emission points. These approximations need to be relaxed in order to better determine the feasibility of neutrino intensity interferometry for supernovae neutrinos in a more realistic scenario. In this paper we further investigate the feasibility of intensity interferometry for supernova neutrinos by relaxing all the approximations made in the earlier study. We find that, while relaxing any one assumption reduces the correlation signal, the relaxation of the assumption of equal times of detection is by far the largest detrimental factor. For neutrino energies of order ∼15 MeV and a supernova distance of L=10 kpc, we show that in order to observe the interference pattern in the two-point correlation function of the neutrino pairs, the timing resolution of a detector needs to be on the order of ≲10-21 s if the initial neutrino wave packet has a size of σx∼10-11 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the possibility of probing the nonstandard interactions between the neutrino and a hypothetical massive scalar or pseudoscalar via neutrino flavor transformation in supernovae. We find that in the ultrarelativistic limit, the effective interaction between the neutrinos vanishes if neutrinos are Dirac fermions but not if they are Majorana fermions. The impact of the new neutrino interaction upon the flavor transformation above the neutrinosphere is calculated in the context of the multiangle "neutrino bulb model." We find that the addition of the nonstandard neutrino self-interaction (NSSI) to the ordinary V-A self-interaction between neutrinos is capable of dramatically altering the collective oscillations when its strength is comparable to the standard, V-A, interaction. The effect of flavor-preserving (FP) NSSI is generally to suppress flavor transformation, while the flavor-violating (FV) interactions are found to promote flavor transformations. If the neutrino signal from a Galactic supernova can be sufficiently well understood, supernova neutrinos can provide complimentary constraints on scalar/pseudoscalar interactions of neutrinos as well as distinguishing whether the neutrino is a Majorana or Dirac fermion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strong gravitational field around a proto-neutron star can modify the neutrino flavor transformations that occur above the neutrinosphere via three general relativistic (GR) effects: time dilation, energy redshift, and trajectory bending. Depending on the compactness of the central object, the neutrino self-interaction potential is up to three times as large as that without GR principally due to trajectory bending which increases the intersection angles between different neutrino trajectories, and time dilation which changes the fluxes. We determine whether GR effects are important for flavor transformation during the different epochs of a supernova by using multiangle flavor transformation calculations and consider a density profile and neutrino spectra representative of both the accretion and cooling phases. We find the GR effects are smaller during the accretion phase due to low compactness of the proto-neutron star and merely delay the decoherence; the neutrino bipolar oscillations during the cooling phase are also delayed due to the GR effects but the delay may be more important because the delay occurs at radii where it might alter the nucleosynthesis in the neutrino driven wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their use as cosmological distance indicators and their importance in the chemical evolution of galaxies, the unequivocal identification of the progenitor systems and explosion mechanism of normal type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) remains elusive. The leading hypothesis is that such a supernova is a thermonuclear explosion of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, but the exact explosion mechanism is still a matter of debate. Observation of a galactic SN Ia would be of immense value in answering the many open questions related to these events. One potentially useful source of information about the explosion mechanism and progenitor is the neutrino signal because the neutrinos from the different mechanisms possess distinct spectra as a function of time and energy. In this paper, we compute the expected neutrino signal from a gravitationally confined detonation (GCD) explosion scenario for a SN Ia and show how the flux at Earth contains features in time and energy unique to this scenario. We then calculate the expected event rates in the Super-K, Hyper-K, JUNO, DUNE, and IceCube detectors and find both Hyper-K and IceCube will see a few events for a GCD supernova at 1 kpc or closer, while Super-K, JUNO, and DUNE will see events if the supernova is closer than ~0.3 kpc. The distance and detector criteria needed to resolve the time and spectral features arising from the explosion mechanism, neutrino production, and neutrino oscillation processes are also discussed. The neutrino signal from the GCD is then compared with the signal from a deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) explosion model computed previously. We find the overall event rate is the most discriminating feature between the two scenarios followed by the event rate time structure. Using the event rate in the Hyper-K detector alone, the DDT can be distinguished from the GCD at 2σ if the distance to the supernova is less than 2.3 kpc for a normal mass ordering and 3.6 kpc for an inverted ordering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition probabilities describing the evolution of a neutrino with a given energy along some ray through a turbulent supernova profile are random variates unique to each ray. If the proto-neutron-star source of the neutrinos were a point, then one might expect the evolution of the turbulence would cause the flavor composition of the neutrinos to vary in time i.e. the flavor would scintillate. But in reality the proto-neutron star is not a point source--it has a size of order ~10km, so the neutrinos emitted from different points at the source will each have seen different turbulence. The finite source size will reduce the correlation of the flavor transition probabilities along different trajectories and reduce the magnitude of the flavor scintillation. To determine whether the finite size of the proto-neutron star will preclude flavor scintillation, we calculate the correlation of the neutrino flavor transition probabilities through turbulent supernova profiles as a function of the separation δx between the emission points. The correlation will depend upon the power spectrum used for the turbulence, and we consider two cases: when the power spectrum is isotropic, and the more realistic case of a power spectrum which is anisotropic on large scales and isotropic on small. Although it is dependent on a number of uncalibrated parameters, we show the supernova neutrino source is not of sufficient size to significantly blur flavor scintillation in all mixing channels when using an isotropic spectrum, and this same result holds when using an anisotropic spectrum, except when we greatly reduce the similarity of the turbulence along parallel trajectories separated by ~10km or less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition probabilities for a single neutrino emitted from a point proto-neutron source after passage through a turbulent supernova density profile have been found to be random variates drawn from parent distributions whose properties depend upon the stage of the explosion, the neutrino energy and mixing parameters, the observed channel, and the properties of the turbulence such as the amplitude C*. In this paper we examine the consequences of the recently measured mixing angle θ13 upon the neutrino flavor transformation in supernova when passing through turbulence, in order to provide some clarity as to what one should expect in the way of turbulence effects in the next supernova neutrino burst signal. We find that the measurements of a relatively large value of θ13 means the neutrinos are relatively immune to small, C*≲1%, amplitude turbulence but as C* increases the turbulence effects grow rapidly and spread to all mixing channels. For C*≳10% the turbulence effects in the high density resonance mixing channels are independent of θ13 but nonresonant mixing channels are more sensitive to turbulence when θ13 is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to decode the neutrino burst signal from a Galactic core-collapse supernova (ccSN) and reveal the complicated inner workings of the explosion we need a thorough understanding of the neutrino flavor evolution from the proto-neutron star outwards. The flavor content of the signal evolves due to both neutrino collective effects and matter effects which can lead to a highly interesting interplay and distinctive spectral features. In this paper we investigate the supernova neutrino flavor evolution in three different progenitors and include collective flavor effects, the evolution of the Mikheyev, Smirnov & Wolfenstein (MSW) conversion due to the shock wave passage through the star, and the impact of turbulence. We consider both normal and inverted neutrino mass hierarchies and a value of θ13 close to the current experimental measurements. In the Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium (ONeMg) supernova we find that the impact of turbulence is both brief and slight during a window of 1-2 seconds post bounce. This is because the shock races through the star extremely quickly and the turbulence amplitude is expected to be small, less than 10%, since these stars do not require multidimensional physics to explode. Thus the spectral features of collective and shock effects in the neutrino signals from Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium supernovae may be almost turbulence free making them the easiest to interpret. For the more massive progenitors we again find that small amplitude turbulence, up to 10%, leads to a minimal modification of the signal, and the emerging neutrino spectra retain both collective and MSW features. However, when larger amounts of turbulence is added, 30% and 50%, which is justified by the requirement of multidimensional physics in order to make these stars explode, the features of collective and shock wave effects in the high (H) density resonance channel are almost completely obscured at late times. Yet at the same time we find the other mixing channels--the low (L) density resonance channel and the nonresonant channels--begin to develop turbulence signatures. Large amplitude turbulent motions in the outer layers of more massive, iron core-collapse supernovae may obscure the most obvious fingerprints of collective and shock wave effects in the neutrino signal but cannot remove them completely, and additionally bring about new features in the signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the present time even the most sophisticated, multidimensional simulations of core-collapse supernovae do not (self-consistently) include neutrino flavor transformation. This physics is missing despite the importance of neutrinos in the core-collapse explosion paradigm. Because of this dependence, any flavor transformation that occurs in the region between the protoneutron star and the shock could result in major effects upon the dynamics of the explosion. We present the first hydrodynamic core-collapse supernova simulation which simultaneously includes flavor transformation of the free-streaming neutrinos in the neutrino transport. These oscillation calculations are dynamically updated and evolve self-consistently alongside the hydrodynamics. Using a M=20 M⊙ progenitor, we find that while the oscillations have an effect on the neutrino emission and the heating rates, flavor transformation alone does not lead to a successful explosion of this progenitor in spherical symmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neutrinos play a critical role of transporting energy and changing the lepton density within corecollapse supernovae and neutron star mergers. The quantum kinetic equations (QKEs) combine the effects of neutrino-matter interactions treated in classical Boltzmann transport with the neutrino flavor-changing effects treated in neutrino oscillation calculations. We present a method for extending existing neutrino interaction rates to full QKE source terms for use in numerical calculations. We demonstrate the effects of absorption and emission by nucleons and nuclei, electron scattering, electron-positron pair annihilation, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, neutrino-neutrino scattering. For the first time, we include all these collision terms self-consistently in a simulation of the full isotropic QKEs in conditions relevant to core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers. For our choice of parameters, the long-term evolution of the neutrino distribution function proceeds similarly with and without the oscillation term, though with measurable differences. We demonstrate that electron scattering, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung processes, and four-neutrino processes dominate flavor decoherence in the protoneutron star (PNS), absorption dominates near the shock, and all of the considered processes except elastic nucleon scattering and neutrino-neutrino processes are relevant in the decoupling region. Finally, we propose an effective decoherence opacity that at most energies predicts decoherence rates to within a factor of 10 in our model PNS and within 20% outside of the PNS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonstandard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter can significantly alter neutrino flavor evolution in supernovae with the potential to impact explosion dynamics, nucleosynthesis, and the neutrinos signal. In this paper, we explore, both numerically and analytically, the landscape of neutrino flavor transformation effects in supernovae due to NSI and find a new, heretofore unseen transformation processes can occur. These new transformations can take place with NSI strengths well below current experimental limits. Within a broad swath of NSI parameter space, we observe symmetric and standard matter-neutrino resonances for supernovae neutrinos, a transformation effect previously only seen in compact object merger scenarios; in another region of the parameter space we find the NSI can induce neutrino collective effects in scenarios where none would appear with only the standard case of neutrino oscillation physics; and in a third region the NSI can lead to the disappearance of the high density Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein resonance. Using a variety of analytical tools, we are able to describe quantitatively the numerical results allowing us to partition the NSI parameter according to the transformation processes observed. Our results indicate nonstandard interactions of supernova neutrinos provide a sensitive probe of beyond the Standard Model physics complementary to present and future terrestrial experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A very massive star with a carbon-oxygen core in the range of 64 M⊙