Effect of Collective Neutrino Oscillations on the Neutrino Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernovae

Details Effect of Collective Neutrino Oscillations on the Neutrino Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernovae Effect of Collective Neutrino Oscillations on the Neutrino Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernovae

2011-06-28

arxiv.org/abs/1106.5718v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

5 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ApJ

Scientific paper

In the seconds after collapse of a massive star, the newborn proto-neutron star (PNS) radiates neutrinos of all flavors. The absorption of electron-type neutrinos below the radius of the stalled shockwave may drive explosions (the "neutrino mechanism"). Because the heating rate is proportional to the neutrino energy, flavor conversion of higher-energy mu and tau neutrinos to electron-type neutrinos via collective neutrino oscillations (CnuO) can increase the heating rate, and potentially drive explosions. We solve the steady-state boundary value problem of spherically-symmetric accretion between the PNS surface (r_nu) and the shock (r_S), for the first time including a scheme for flavor conversion via CnuO. For a given r_nu, PNS mass (M), and accretion rate (Mdot), we calculate the critical neutrino luminosity above which accretion is impossible and explosion results. We show that CnuO decreases the critical luminosity by a factor of ~1.5, but only if the flavor conversion is fully completed inside r_S. The effect is smaller for partial conversion. The shock radius and the physical scale for flavor conversion depend differently on the parameters of the problem. We quantify these dependencies and find that CnuO lowers the critical luminosity substantially for small M and Mdot, and large r_nu. Thus, CnuO can be important for shockwave revival if PNSs contract slowly, which may favor a stiff nuclear equation of state, and if progenitors reach low Mdot at early times after collapse, which favors the lowest-mass massive stars.

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