Electroweak interactions between intense neutrino beams and dense electron-positron magnetoplasmas

Abstract

The electroweak coupling between intense neutrino beams and strongly degenerate relativistic dense electron-positron magnetoplasmas is considered. The intense neutrino bursts interact with the plasma due to the weak Fermi interaction force, and their dynamics is governed by a kinetic equation. Our objective here is to develop a kinetic equation for a degenerate neutrino gas and to use that equation to derive relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations. The latter are useful for studying numerous collective processes when intense neutrino beams nonlinearly interact with degenerate, relativistic, dense electron-positron plasmas in strong magnetic fields. If the number densities of the plasma particles are of the order of 1033 cm-3, the pair plasma becomes ultra-relativistic, which strongly affects the potential energy of the weak Fermi interaction. The new system of equations allows several neutrino-driven streaming instabilities involving new types of relativistic Alfven-like waves. The relevance of our investigation to the early universe and supernova explosions is discussed.