Evolution of tau-neutrino lepton number in protoneutron stars due to active-sterile neutrino mixing

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Abstract

We present an approximate treatment of the mixing between ντ (ν¯τ) and a sterile species νs (ν¯s) with a vacuum mass-squared difference of ∼102-103 keV2 in protoneutron stars created in core-collapse supernovae. Including production of sterile neutrinos through both resonant flavor conversion and collisions, we track the evolution of the ντ lepton number due to both escape of sterile neutrinos and diffusion. Our approach provides a reasonable treatment of the pertinent processes discussed in previous studies and serves a pedagogical purpose to elucidate the relevant physics. We also discuss refinements needed to study more accurately how flavor mixing with sterile neutrinos affects protoneutron star evolution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number063025
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume108
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 15 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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