Collective neutrino oscillations in turbulent backgrounds

Abstract

Using a Kolmogorov turbulence model, we investigate the effects of fluctuations in matter and neutrino density in the region near a supernova core on the flavor oscillations of neutrinos emitted in the core collapse in a single-angle, two-flavor approximation. Deviation from a smooth background neutrino density causes significant alterations in the final flavor state of the neutrino ensemble after 400 km, but even very large fluctuations in the matter density do not strongly affect the state of the neutrinos after the collective phase. In both cases, there is a strong effect on the neutrino flavor evolution at intermediate radii, with the flavor evolution becoming much more chaotic. The effect of fluctuations also depends strongly on the initial neutrino spectra. We conclude that the true neutrino fluxes arriving at Earth from core-collapse supernova could differ considerably from predictions of neutrino fluxes based on approximate models with smoothly decreasing matter and neutrino densities.