Symmetry breaking due to multi-angle matter-neutrino resonance in neutron star merger remnants

Abstract

Neutron star merger remnants are unique sites for exploring neutrino flavor conversion in dense media. Because of the natural excess of ν̅e over νe , the neutrino-neutrino potential can cancel the matter potential, giving rise to matter-neutrino resonant flavor conversion. Under the assumption of two (anti)neutrino flavors and spatial homogeneity, we solve the neutrino quantum kinetic equations to investigate the occurrence of the matter-neutrino resonance within a multi-angle framework. We find that isotropy is broken spontaneously, regardless of the mass ordering. Relying on a hydrodynamical simulation of a binary neutron star merger remnant with a black hole of 3 M ⊙ and an accretion torus of 0.3 M ⊙, we find that complete flavor conversion caused by the matter-neutrino resonance is unlikely, although the matter and neutrino potentials cancel at various locations above the disk. Importantly, the matter-neutrino resonant flavor conversion crucially depends on the shape of the neutrino angular distributions. Our findings suggest that an accurate modeling of the neutrino angular distributions is necessary to understand flavor conversion physics in merger remnants, its implications on the disk physics and synthesis of the elements heavier than iron.