Chiral effective field theory calculations of neutrino processes in dense matter
S. Bacca, K. Hally, C. J. Pethick, A. Schwenk
备注：
5 pages, 3 figures; NORDITA-2008-57; minor changes and additions, added results for the energy transfer in neutrino scattering, to appear as Rapid. Comm. in Phys. Rev. C
We calculate neutrino processes involving two nucleons at subnuclear densities using chiral effective field theory. Shorter-range noncentral forces reduce the neutrino rates significantly compared with the one-pion exchange approximation currently used in supernova simulations. For densities rho < 10^{14} g cm^{-3}, we find that neutrino rates are well constrained by nuclear interactions and nucleon-nucleon scattering data. As an application, we calculate the mean-square energy transfer in scattering of a neutrino from nucleons and find that collision processes and spin-dependent mean-field effects dominate over the energy transfer due to nucleon recoil.
An algebraic approach to the neutrino propagation in dense media is presented. The Hamiltonian describing a gas of neutrinos interacting with each other and with background fermions is written in terms of the appropriate SU(N) operators, where N is the number of neutrino flavors. The evolution of the resulting many-body problem is formulated as a coherent-state path integral. Some commonly used approximations are shown to represent the saddle-point solution of the path integral for the full many-body system.
The sensitivity of the differential cross section of the interaction between neutrino-electron with dense matter to the possibly nonzero neutrino electromagnetic properties has been investigated. Here, the relativistic mean field model inspired by effective field theory has been used to describe non strange dense matter, both with and without the neutrino trapping. We have found that the cross section becomes more sensitive to the constituent distribution of the matter, once electromagnetic properties of the neutrino are taken into account. The effects of electromagnetic properties of neutrino…
The mean free path of neutrino - free electron gas interaction has been calculated by taking into account the neutrino electromagnetic form factors and the possibility of neutrino oscillation. It is shown that the form factor effect becomes significant for a neutrino magnetic moment μ_ν> 10^{-10} mu_B and for a neutrino radius R > 10^{-6} MeV^{-1}. The mean free path is found to be sensitive to the nu_e-nu_mu and nu_e-nu_e^R transition probabilities.
We have studied the effects of the nucleon weak magnetism and the neutrino electromagnetic properties on the neutrino and antineutrino mean free paths for all types of neutrinos. In the calculation, we consider matters with and without neutrino trapping as the target. We have found that the difference between the two mean free paths depends not only on the neutrino energy, but also on the matter density as well as matter constituents. Compared to the nucleon weak magnetism, the neutrino electromagnetic properties are found to have negligible effects on this difference.
The gravitational collapse of a non-rotating, black-hole-forming massive star is studied by neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamical simulations for two different sets of realistic equation of state of dense matter. We show that the event will produce as many neutrinos as the ordinary supernova, but with distinctive characteristics in luminosities and spectra that will be an unmistakable indication of black hole formation. More importantly, the neutrino signals are quite sensitive to the difference of equation of state and can be used as a useful probe into the properties of dense matter. The event w…
Chirality of neutrinos modifies the conventional kinetic theory and hydrodynamics, leading to unusual chiral transport related to quantum anomalies in field theory. We argue that these corrections have new phenomenological consequences for hot and dense neutrino gases, especially in core-collapse supernovae. We find that the neutrino density can be converted to the fluid helicity through the chiral vortical effect. This fluid helicity effectively acts as a chiral chemical potential for electrons via the momentum exchange with neutrinos and induces a "helical plasma instability" that generates …
Based on the recently formulated chiral radiation transport theory for left-handed neutrinos, we study the chiral transport of neutrinos near thermal equilibrium in core-collapse supernovae. We first compute the near-equilibrium solution of the chiral radiation transport equation under the relaxation time approximation, where the relaxation time is directly derived from the effective field theory of the weak interaction. By using such a solution, we systematically derive analytic expressions for the nonequilibrium corrections of the neutrino energy-momentum tensor and neutrino number current i…
Even the elusive neutrinos are trapped in matter, albeit transiently, in several astrophysical circumstances. Their interactions with the ambient matter not only reveal the properties of such exotic matter itself, but also shed light on the fundamental properties of the neutrinos themselves. The physical sites of interest include the early universe, supernovae, and newly-born neutron stars. Detection of neutrinos from these vastly different eras using the new generation of neutrino detectors holds great promise for enhancing our understanding of neutrino-matter interactions and astrophysical p…
We construct the chiral radiation transport equation for left-handed neutrinos in the context of radiation hydrodynamics for core-collapse supernovae. Based on the chiral kinetic theory incorporating quantum corrections due to the chirality of fermions, we derive a general relativistic form of the chiral transfer equation with collisions. We show that such quantum corrections explicitly break the spherical symmetry and axisymmetry of the system. In the inertial frame, in particular, we find that the so-called side jump leads to quantum corrections in the collisions between neutrinos and matter…
The conventional neutrino transport theory for core-collapse supernovae misses one key property of neutrinos: the left-handedness. The chirality of neutrinos modifies the hydrodynamic behavior at the macroscopic scale and leads to topological transport phenomena. We argue that such transport phenomena should play important roles in the evolution of core-collapse supernovae, and, in particular, lead to a tendency toward the inverse energy cascade from small to larger scales, which may be relevant to the origin of the supernova explosion.
We show that the backreaction of left-handed neutrinos out of equilibrium on the matter sector induces an electric current proportional to a magnetic field even without a chiral imbalance for electrons in core-collapse supernovae. We derive the transport coefficient of this effect based on the recently formulated chiral radiation transport theory for neutrinos. This chiral electric current generates a strong magnetic field via the so-called chiral plasma instability, which could provide a new mechanism for the strong and stable magnetic field of magnetars. We also numerically study the physica…
We consider the rate at which energy is emitted by neutrinos from the dense interior of neutron stars containing a Bose condensate of pions or kaons. The rates obtained are larger, by a factor of 2, than those found earlier, and are consistent with those found for the direct Urca processes.
We present a theory of neutrino oscillations in a dense medium which goes beyond the effective matter potential used in the description of the MSW effect. We show how the purity of the neutrino state is degraded by neutrino interactions with the environment and how neutrino--matter interactions can be a source of decoherence. We present new oscillation formulae for neutrinos interacting with leptons and carry out a numerical analysis which exhibits deviations from the MSW formulae for propagation through the Earth of ultra-high energy neutrinos. In particular, we show that at high density and/…
This article provides a concise review of the problem of neutrino radiation from dense matter. The subjects addressed include quantum kinetic equations for neutrino transport, collision integrals describing neutrino radiation through charged and neutral current interactions, radiation rates from pair-correlated baryonic and color superconducting quark matter.
We discuss phases of hot and dense hadronic matter using chiral Lagrangians. A two-flavored parity doublet model constrained by the nuclear matter ground state predicts chiral symmetry restoration. The model thermodynamics is shown within the mean field approximation. A field-theoretical constraint on possible phases from the anomaly matching is also discussed.
Heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory ($χ$PT), where the $Δ$ resonance is included, is used in order to examine the axial charged-current component of the weak interaction process at low neutrino energies. At leading chiral order the Adler theorems, derived using PCAC, are satisfied. At next-to-leading chiral order this effective field theory goes beyond these theorems. I will show that $χ$PT generates deviation from the PCAC predictions, which means that some neutrino-nucleon models that are used in evaluating neutrino nucleus scattering amplitudes, might need modifications.
In dense environments, standard and non-standard neutrino interactions with the background particles trigger a variety of flavor mechanisms, which can impact r-process nucleosynthetic abundances. Future observations of a(n) (extra)galactic supernova will tell us about properties of neutrinos and of the astrophysical source that produce them. The upcoming measurement of the diffuse supernova neutrino background constitute a unique source of information. We highlight some recent developments.
The phase diagram of dense quark matter with chiral imbalance is considered with the conditions of electric neutrality and $β$-equilibrium. It has been shown recently that chiral imbalance can generate charged pion condensation in dense quark matter, so it was interesting to verify that this phenomenon takes place in realistic physical scenarios such as electrically neutral matter in $β$-equilibrium, because a window of pion condensation at dense quark matter phase diagram (without chiral imbalance) predicted earlier was closed by the consideration of these conditions at the physical current q…
I describe how effective chiral Lagrangian field theories work for nuclei and nuclear matter by going from the deuteron to dense hadronic matter via BR scaling and Landau Fermi-liquid fixed point parameters, with possible applications to relativistic heavy-ion processes and compact ``nuclear stars.''
We study two-flavor neutrino oscillations in homogeneous neutrino gases in which neutrinos and anti-neutrinos are in nearly pure weak interaction states initially. We find that the monopole and dipole oscillation modes can trigger flavor instabilities in the opposite neutrino mass hierarchies in a nearly isotropic neutrino gas. For a class of simple neutrino systems we are able to identify the normal modes of neutrino oscillations in the linear regime. Our results provide new insights into the recently discovered multi-azimuthal angle (MAA) instability of neutrino oscillations in supernovae.
Chiral restoration phase transition in hot and/or dense hadronic matter is discussed in terms of the BR scaling based on chiral symmetry and scale anomaly of QCD. The precise connection between the scalar field that figures in the trace anomaly and the sigma field that figures in the linear $σ$ model is established. It is suggested that in hot and/or dense medium, the nonlinear $σ$ model linearizes with the help of a dilaton to a linear $σ$ model with medium-renormalized constants. The relevance of Georgi's vector symmetry and/or Weinberg's ``mended symmetry" in chiral restoration is pointed o…
We discuss phases in dense hadronic and quark matter from chiral model approaches. Within PNJL models the phase diagram for various number of colors $N_c$ is studied. How phases are constrained in quantum field theories are also discussed along with the anomaly matching. An exotic phase with unbroken center symmetry of chiral group has a characteristic feature in the thermodynamics, which can be interpreted as one realization of the quarkyonic phase in QCD for $N_c=3$.
A new phase of dense QCD proposed in the limit of large number of colors, Quarkyonic Phase, is discussed in chiral approaches. The interplay between chiral symmetry breaking and confinement together with the $N_c$ dependence of the phase diagram are dealt with in the PNJL model. We also discuss a possible phase at finite density where chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken while its center remains unbroken. The quark number susceptibility exhibits a strong enhancement at the restoration point of the center symmetry rather than that of the chiral symmetry. This is reminiscent of the quarkyonic…
We calculate the scattering rate of low energy neutrinos in hot and dense neutron matter encountered in neutrons stars and supernova in the hydrodynamic regime. We find that the Brillouin peak, associated with the sound mode, and the Rayleigh peak, associated with the thermal diffusion mode, dominate the dynamic structure factor. Although the total scattering cross section is constrained by the compressibility sum rule, the differential cross-section calculated using the hydrodynamic response function differs from results obtained in approximate treatments often used in astrophysics such as ra…
The neutrino pion production off the nucleon is traditionally described in the literature by means of the weak excitation of the Delta(1232) resonance and its subsequent decay into N pi. Here, we present results from a model that includes also some background terms required by chiral symmetry. We show that the contribution of these terms is sizeable and leads to significant effects in total and partially integrated pion production cross sections at intermediate energies of interest for neutrino oscillation experiments. Finally, we discuss parity-violating contributions to the pion angular diff…
We carry out a series of studies on pion and photon productions in neutrino/electron/photon--nucleus scatterings. The low energy region is investigated by using a chiral effective field theory for nuclei. The results for the neutral current induced photon production ($γ$-NCP) are then extrapolated to neutrino energy $E_ν\sim$ GeV region. By convoluting the cross sections with MiniBooNE's beam spectrum and detection efficiency, we estimate its $γ$-NCP, event number, and conclude that such photon production can not fully explain its low energy event excess in both neutrino and antineutrino runs.
We consider a new approach to the description of dense nuclear matter in the framework of chirally symmetric, quark-based hadron models. As previously in the Skyrme model, the dense environment is described in terms of hyperspherical cells of unit baryon number. The intrinsic curvature of these cells generates a new gauge interaction for the quark fields which mediates interactions with the ambient matter. We apply this approach to the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model, construct its curved-space quark propagator and solve the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the pion. We find a high-density ph…
We investigate the stability, with respect to spatial inhomogeneity, of a two-dimensional dense neutrino gas. The system exhibits growth of seed inhomogeneity due to nonlinear coherent neutrino self-interactions. In the absence of incoherent collisional effects, we observe a dependence of this instability growth rate on the neutrino mass spectrum: the normal neutrino mass hierarchy exhibits spatial instability over a larger range of neutrino number density compared to that of the inverted case. We further consider the effect of elastic incoherent collisions of the neutrinos with a static backg…
Effects of the in-medium modifications of nucleon form factors on neutrino interaction in dense matter are presented by considering both the weak and electromagnetic interactions of neutrinos with the constituents of the matter. A relativistic mean field and the quark-meson coupling models are respectively adopted for the effective nucleon mass and in-medium nucleon form factors. We calculate the cross-section of neutrino scattering as well as the neutrino mean free path. We found the cross sections of neutrino scattering in cold nuclear medium decreases when the in-medium modifications of the…
We show a phase diagram of a two-flavored parity doublet model on top of the nuclear matter ground state within the mean field approximation. An exotic phase with unbroken center symmetry of chiral group is also discussed. When crossing this phase boundary the baryon number susceptibility exhibits a characteristic feature.
It is shown that explicitly broken scale symmetry is essential for dense skyrmion matter in hidden local symmetry theory. Consistency with the vector manifestation fixed point for the hidden local symmetry of the lowest-lying vector mesons and the dilaton limit fixed point for scale symmetry in dense matter is found to require that the anomalous dimension ($γ_{G^2}$) of the gluon field strength tensor squared ($G^2$) that represents the quantum trace anomaly should be $0 <γ_{G^2} <3$.
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We overview two interconnected topics: possible effective restoration of chiral symmetry in highly excited hadrons and possible existence of confined but chirally symmetric matter at low temperatures and high densities.
Neutrino processes in dense matter play a key role in the dynamics, deleptonization and early cooling of hot protoneutron stars formed in the gravitational collapse of massive stars. Here we calculate neutrino mean free paths from neutrino-hyperon interactions in dense matter containing hyperons. Significant contributions to the neutrino opacity arise from scattering and absorption reactions involving the sigma minus particle. The estimates given here emphasise the need for (a) opacities which incoparate many-body effects in a multi-component mixture, and (b) new calculations of thermal and le…
The flavor conversion of a neutrino usually occurs at densities $\lesssim G_F^{-1} ω$, whether in the ordinary matter or the neutrino medium, and on time/distance scales of order $ω^{-1}$, where $G_F$ is the Fermi weak coupling constant and $ω$ is the vacuum oscillation frequency of the neutrino. In 2005 Sawyer and more recently both he and other groups have shown that neutrino flavor conversions can occur on scales much shorter than $ω^{-1}$ in a very dense, anisotropic neutrino gas such as that in a core-collapse supernova or a binary neutron star merger. It has also been suggested that the …
We investigate the impact of the nonzero neutrino splitting and elastic neutrino-nucleon collisions on fast neutrino oscillations. Our calculations confirm that a small neutrino mass splitting and the neutrino mass hierarchy have very little effect on fast oscillation waves. We also demonstrate explicitly that fast oscillations remain largely unaffected for the time/distance scales that are much smaller than the neutrino mean free path but are damped on larger scales. This damping originates from both the direct modification of the dispersion relation of the oscillation waves in the neutrino m…
We derive the most general evolution equations describing in-medium (anti)neutrino propagation in the mean-field approximation. In particular, we consider various types of neutrino-antineutrino mixing, for both Dirac and Majorana fields, resulting either from nontrivial pair correlations or from helicity coherence due to the nonvanishing neutrino masses. We show that, unless the medium is spatially homogeneous and isotropic, these correlations are sourced by the usual neutrino and antineutrino densities. This may be of importance in astrophysical environments such as core-collapse supernovae.
The photon self-energy from chirally imbalanced quark matter is evaluated at finite temperature and density using the real time formulation of thermal field theory. The analytic structure is explored in detail exposing the cut structure which corresponds to a variety of physical scattering and decay processes in the medium and their thresholds. The mass of the quarks in the chiral symmetry broken phase are obtained from the gap equation of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. It is found that, in presence of finite chiral chemical potential, the chiral condensate tends to get stronger at low tempera…
Neutrino-neutrino refraction dominates the flavor evolution in core-collapse supernovae, neutron-star mergers, and the early universe. Ordinary neutrino flavor conversion develops on timescales determined by the vacuum oscillation frequency. However, when the neutrino density is large enough, collective flavor conversion may arise because of pairwise neutrino scattering. Pairwise conversion is deemed to be fast as it is expected to occur on timescales that depend on the neutrino-neutrino interaction energy (i.e., on the neutrino number density) and is regulated by the angular distributions of …
We describe in-medium properties of hadrons in dense matter near chiral restoration using a Wilsonian matching to QCD of an effective field theory with hidden local symmetry at the chiral cutoff $Λ$. We find that chiral symmetry is restored in vector manifestation à la Harada and Yamawaki at a critical matter density $n_c$. We express the critical density in terms of QCD correlators in dense matter at the matching scale. In a manner completely analogous to what happens at the critical $N_f^c$ and at the critical temperature $T^c$, the vector meson mass is found to vanish (in the chiral limit) …
We review efforts to describe the approach to chiral symmetry restoration in neutron matter from the low-energy realization of QCD, chiral effective field theory.
We analyze the chiral phase transition of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model in the cold and dense region on the lattice developing the Grassmann version of the anisotropic tensor renormalization group algorithm. The model is formulated with the Kogut--Susskind fermion action. We use the chiral condensate as an order parameter to investigate the restoration of the chiral symmetry. The first-order chiral phase transition is clearly observed in the dense region at vanishing temperature with $μ/T\sim O(10^3)$ on a large volume of $V=1024^4$. We also present the results for the equation of state.
The history of how chiral symmetry has entered in nuclear physics, in which Gerry Brown and I have participated from 1970 up to today, is described from my personal viewpoint. The route of development we have traversed together goes from meson exchange currents, to "little chiral bag," to chiral effective field theory, to "Brown-Rho scaling" and then to dense matter and chiral phase transition. It has been a great fun and exciting, some right and some wrong in what we have done together, but none that can be dismissed as "not even wrong." We have found all along that whatever signal there may …
The flavor transformation in a dense neutrino gas can have a significant impact on the physical and chemical evolution of its surroundings. In this work we demonstrate that a dynamic, fast flavor oscillation wave can develop spontaneously in a one-dimensional (1D) neutrino gas when the angular distributions of the electron neutrino and antineutrino cross each other. Unlike the 2D stationary models which are plagued with small-scale flavor structures, the fast flavor oscillation waves remain coherent in the dynamic 1D model in both the position and momentum spaces of the neutrino. The electron …
We propose an effective chiral Lagrangian with a chiral scalar introduced as a dilaton associated with broken conformal symmetry and responsible for the trace anomaly in QCD and discuss the properties of hadronic matter at high density and temperature. As the "dilaton limit" is taken, which drives a system from nuclear matter density to near chiral restoration density, a linear sigma model emerges from the highly non-linear structure. A striking prediction is that as the dilaton limit is approached, the omega-nucleon interaction gets strongly suppressed at high density. This is shown to be a f…
Using the quantum field theory methods, we calculate the helicity flip of an electron scattering off protons in dense matter of a neutron star. The influence of the electroweak interaction between electrons and background nucleons on the helicity flip is examined. We also derive the kinetic equation for the chiral imbalance. The derived kinetic equation is compared with the results obtained by other authors.
In the presence of a chemical potential, the effect of a magnetic field on chiral symmetry breaking goes beyond the well-known magnetic catalysis. Due to a subtle interplay with the chemical potential, the magnetic field may work not only in favor but also against the chirally broken phase. At sufficiently large coupling, the magnetic field favors the broken phase only for field strengths beyond any conceivable value in nature. Therefore, in the interior of magnetars, a possible transition from chirally broken hadronic matter to chirally symmetric quark matter might occur at smaller densities …
It is possible that at low temperatures and large density there exists a confining matter with restored chiral symmetry, just after the dense nuclear matter with broken chiral symmetry. Such a phase has sofar been studied within a confining and chirally symmetric model assuming a rigid quark Fermi surface. In the confining quarkyonic matter, however, near the Fermi surface quarks group into color-singlet baryons. Interaction between quarks leads to a diffusion of the quark Fermi surface. Here we study effects of such diffusion and verify that it does not destroy a possible existence of a confi…
We study the role of chiral nuclear forces on the propagation of neutrinos in hot neutron matter. In particular, we analyze the convergence of the dynamical structure factor and the neutrino mean free path with the order of the power counting of the chiral forces, as well as the role of the regulator cut-off of these forces in the determination of these quantities. Single-particle energies and chemical potentials needed to calculate the dynamical structure factor are obtained within the Brueckner--Hartree--Fock approximation extended to finite temperature. Our results show that the dynamical s…
Cross sections for inclusive neutrino scattering off deuteron induced by neutral and charge-changing weak currents are calculated from threshold up to 150 MeV energies in a chiral effective field theory including high orders in the power counting. Contributions beyond leading order (LO) in the weak current are found to be small, and increase the cross sections obtained with the LO transition operators by a couple of percent over the whole energy range (0--150) MeV. The cutoff dependence is negligible, and the predicted cross sections are within $\sim 2$\% of, albeit consistently larger than, c…
We have computed the chiral susceptibility in quark-gluon plasma in presence of finite chemical potential and weak magnetic field within hard thermal loop approximation. First we construct the massive effective quark propagator in a thermomagnetic medium. Then we obtain completely analytic expression for the chiral susceptibility in weak magnetic field approximation. In the absence of magnetic field the thermal chiral susceptibility increases in presence of finite chemical potential. The effect of thermomagnetic correction is found to be very marginal as temperature is the dominant scale in we…
We calculate the neutrino mean free path with non-Fermi liquid (NFL) corrections in quark matter from scattering and absorption processes for both degenerate and nondegenerate neutrinos. We show that the mean free path decreases due to the non-Fermi liquid corrections leading to $l_{mean}^{-1}\sim[......+ .... C_F^2α_s^2\ln(m_D/T)^2]$. These reduction results in higher rate of scattering.
