Vincenzo Cirigliano, Srimoyee Sen, Yukari Yamauchi
Heavy nuclei, such as gold, are thought to be synthesized in astrophysical sites such as supernovae or neutron star mergers. A key input in predicting the yields of various nuclei is provided by the fluxes of electron-type neutrinos, very light and weakly interacting particles which can morph into other ‘flavors’ of neutrinos, called muon and tau neutrinos. In this study, we present a consistent framework to study the quantum many-body neutrino dynamics, adopting for the first time the complete neutrino-neutrino interaction derived from the Standard Model.
In explosive astrophysical sites such as supernovae and neutron star mergers, due to high density, neutrino self-interactions cannot be neglected. The traditional kinetic theory approach has been recently challenged by quantum many-body studies, that however have used a severely limited set of interactions. By implementing the complete neutrino self-interaction for the first time, we study the thermalization of neutrino momenta, a new qualitative phenomenon compared to previous studies, and the shortening of the time scale for randomization of neutrino flavor.
This work opens the way to future studies in several directions. Most importantly, simulations of systems with a larger number of neutrinos with state-of-art many-body methods using classical or quantum computers are required for two reasons. First, such large-scale simulations will allow us to compare the kinetic and quantum many-body approaches. Second, such full neutrino dynamics simulation can provide valuable insights into studies of nucleosynthesis and evolution of dense astrophysical objects.
