Self-induced flavor instabilities of a dense neutrino stream in a two-dimensional model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-dimensional model demonstrating how dense neutrino gases can spontaneously break spatial symmetries, leading to flavor instabilities and domain formations, with implications for supernova neutrino behavior.

Contribution

It presents a simplified 2D model revealing spontaneous symmetry breaking and flavor instabilities in dense neutrino gases, a novel insight into neutrino self-interactions.

Findings

Neutrino flavor content exhibits large spatial variations.

Symmetry breaking induces unstable coherent behavior.

Formation of domains with different lepton number flux.

Abstract

We consider a simplifed model for self-induced flavor conversions of a dense neutrino gas in two dimensions, showing new solutions that spontaneously break the spatial symmetries of the initial conditions. As a result of the symmetry breaking induced by the neutrino-neutrino interactions, the coherent behavior of the neutrino gas becomes unstable. This instability produces large spatial variations in the flavor content of the ensemble. Furthermore, it also leads to the creation of domains of different net lepton number flux. The transition of the neutrino gas from a coherent to incoherent behavior shows an intriguing analogy with a streaming flow changing from laminar to turbulent regime. These finding would be relevant for the self-induced conversions of neutrinos streaming-off a supernova core.