Stimulated Neutrino Transformation with Sinusoidal Density Profiles

TL;DR

This paper explores how sinusoidal density fluctuations can induce neutrino flavor transformations, especially in supernova environments, using both analytical and numerical methods to predict transition locations and strengths.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of stimulated neutrino transformations with sinusoidal density profiles, extending understanding to arbitrary neutrino flavors and identifying supernovae as realistic observation environments.

Findings

Stimulated neutrino transitions can be predicted analytically and numerically.

Supernova environments are suitable for observing these effects.

Locations and strengths of transitions can be accurately forecasted.

Abstract

Large amplitude oscillations between the states of a quantum system can be stimulated by sinusoidal external potentials with frequencies that are similar to the energy level splitting of the states or a fraction thereof. Situations when the applied frequency is equal to an integer fraction of the energy level splittings are known as parametric resonances. We investigate this effect for neutrinos both analytically and numerically for the case of arbitrary numbers of neutrino flavors. We look for environments where the effect may be observed and find that supernova are the one realistic possibility due to the necessity of both large densities and large amplitude fluctuations. The comparison of numerical and analytic results of neutrino propagation through a model supernova reveals it is possible to predict the locations and strengths of the stimulated transitions that occur.