Neutrino Flavor Evolution in Turbulent Supernova Matter

Abstract

In order to decode the neutrino burst signal from a Galactic core-collapse supernova and reveal the complicated inner workings of the explosion, we need a thorough understanding of the neutrino flavor evolution from the proto-neutron-star outwards. The flavor content of the signal evolves due to both neutrino collective effects and matter effects which can lead to a highly interesting interplay and distinctive spectral features. In this paper we investigate the supernova neutrino flavor evolution by including collective flavor effects, the evolution of the Mikheyev, Smirnov & Wolfenstein (MSW) matter conversions due to the shock wave passing through the star, and the impact of turbulence. The density profiles utilized in our calculations represent a 10.8 MG progenitor and comes from a 1D numerical simulation by Fischer et al.[1]. We find that small amplitude turbulence, up to 10% of the average potential, leads to a minimal modification of the signal, and the emerging neutrino spectra retain both collective and MSW features. However, when larger amounts of turbulence are added, 30% and 50%, the features of collective and shock wave effects in the high density resonance channel are almost completely obscured at late times. At the same time we find the other mixing channels – the low density resonance channel and the non-resonant channels – begin to develop turbulence signatures. Large amplitude turbulent motions in the outer layers of massive, iron core-collapse supernovae may obscure the most obvious fingerprints of collective and shock wave effects in the neutrino signal but cannot remove them completely, and additionally bring about new features in the signal. We illustrate how the progression of the shock wave is reflected in the changing survival probabilities over time, and we show preliminary results on how some of these collective and shock wave induced signatures appear in a detector signal.