Open AccessMu-tau neutrino refraction and collective three-flavour transformations in supernovae
Author(s) -
S. Pastor,
Andreu Esteban-Pretel,
R. Tomàs,
Georg G. Raffelt,
G. Sigl
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/136/4/042076
Subject(s) - supernova , refraction , neutrino , flavour , physics , particle physics , nuclear physics , astronomy , optics
We study three-flavor collective neutrino transformations in the dense-neutrino region above the neutrino sphere of a supernova core. We find that two-flavor conversions driven by the atmospheric mass difference and the 13-mixing angle capture the full effect if one neglects the second-order difference between the muon and tau neutrino refractive index. Including this 'mu-tau matter term' provides a resonance at a density of approximately 3 x 10^7 g/cm3 that typically causes significant modifications of the overall electron neutrino and antineutrino survival probabilities. This effect is surprisingly sensitive to deviations from maximal 23-mixing, being different for each octant