Coherent neutrino interactions in a dense medium

Ken Kiers; Nathan Weiss

doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.56.5776

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Coherent neutrino interactions in a dense medium

Ken Kiers

Nathan Weiss

Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973-5000

School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;
Department of Particle Physics, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel;
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1

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Phys. Rev. D 56, 5776 – Published 1 November, 1997

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.56.5776

Abstract

Motivated by the effect of matter on neutrino oscillations (the MSW effect) we study in more detail the propagation of neutrinos in a dense medium. The dispersion relation for massive neutrinos in a medium is known to have a minimum at nonzero momentum $p \sim G_{F} ρ / \sqrt{2} .$ We study in detail the origin and consequences of this dispersion relation for both Dirac and Majorana neutrinos both in a toy model with only neutral currents and a single neutrino flavor and in a realistic “standard model” with two neutrino flavors. We find that for a range of neutrino momenta near the minimum of the dispersion relation, Dirac neutrinos are trapped by their coherent interactions with the medium. This effect does not lead to the trapping of Majorana neutrinos.

References (12)

L. Wolfenstein, Phys. Rev. D 17, 2369 (1978); 20, 2634 (1979); S. P. Mikheyev and A. Yu. Smirnov, Yad. Fiz. 42, 1441 (1985) [Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 42, 913 (1985)]; Nuovo Cimento C 9, 17 (1986).
P. D. Mannheim, Phys. Rev. D 37, 1935 (1988).
J. F. Nieves, Phys. Rev. D 40, 866 (1989).
D. Nötzold and G. Raffelt, Nucl. Phys. B307, 924 (1988).
J. Pantaleone, Phys. Lett. B 268, 227 (1991); Phys. Rev. D 46, 510 (1992).
A. Loeb, Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 115 (1990).
Note that while the trapping effect which we discuss may be difficult to investigate directly via experiment, there could be less direct effects due to the trapped neutrinos which are nevertheless of interest. There has, for example, been a recent discussion concerning the possible effect of trapped (Dirac) neutrinos on long-range interactions in stars: A. Yu. Smirnov and F. Vissani, hep-ph/9604443; A. Yu. Smirnov, in ICHEP 96, Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Warsaw, Poland, edited by Z. Ajduk and A. Wroblewski (World Scientific, Singapore, 1997), hep-ph/9611465; As. Abada, M. B. Gavela, and O. Pène, Phys. Lett. B 387, 315 (1996); E. Fischbach, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 247, 213 (1996).
K. A. Kiers, Ph.D. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1996.
An interesting discussion on the interplay between particle reflection at an interface and pair production may be found in A. Hansen and F. Ravndal, Phys. Scr. 23, 1036 (1981).
P. D. Mannheim, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 23, 643 (1984).
P. B. Pal and T. N. Pham, Phys. Rev. D 40, 259 (1989).
L. N. Chang and R. K. P. Zia, Phys. Rev. D 38, 1669 (1988).

[c1] L. Wolfenstein, Phys. Rev. D 17, 2369 (1978); 20, 2634 (1979); S. P. Mikheyev and A. Yu. Smirnov, Yad. Fiz. 42, 1441 (1985) [Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 42, 913 (1985)]; Nuovo Cimento C 9, 17 (1986).

[c2] P. D. Mannheim, Phys. Rev. D 37, 1935 (1988).

[c3] J. F. Nieves, Phys. Rev. D 40, 866 (1989).

[c4] D. Nötzold and G. Raffelt, Nucl. Phys. B307, 924 (1988).

[c5] J. Pantaleone, Phys. Lett. B 268, 227 (1991); Phys. Rev. D 46, 510 (1992).

[c6] A. Loeb, Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 115 (1990).

[c7] Note that while the trapping effect which we discuss may be difficult to investigate directly via experiment, there could be less direct effects due to the trapped neutrinos which are nevertheless of interest. There has, for example, been a recent discussion concerning the possible effect of trapped (Dirac) neutrinos on long-range interactions in stars: A. Yu. Smirnov and F. Vissani, hep-ph/9604443; A. Yu. Smirnov, in ICHEP 96, Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Warsaw, Poland, edited by Z. Ajduk and A. Wroblewski (World Scientific, Singapore, 1997), hep-ph/9611465; As. Abada, M. B. Gavela, and O. Pène, Phys. Lett. B 387, 315 (1996); E. Fischbach, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 247, 213 (1996).

[c8] K. A. Kiers, Ph.D. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1996.

[c9] An interesting discussion on the interplay between particle reflection at an interface and pair production may be found in A. Hansen and F. Ravndal, Phys. Scr. 23, 1036 (1981).

[c10] P. D. Mannheim, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 23, 643 (1984).

[c11] P. B. Pal and T. N. Pham, Phys. Rev. D 40, 259 (1989).

[c12] L. N. Chang and R. K. P. Zia, Phys. Rev. D 38, 1669 (1988).

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Coherent neutrino interactions in a dense medium

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