Unruh effect for neutrinos interacting with accelerated matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutrinos behave in accelerated matter, revealing that their interaction with such matter causes vacuum instability and neutrino-antineutrino pair creation, with implications for astrophysics and the Unruh effect.

Contribution

It derives the Dirac equation for neutrinos in accelerated matter, demonstrates neutrino pair creation due to acceleration, and refines the Unruh temperature correction considering neutrino interactions.

Findings

Neutrino-electroweak interaction causes vacuum instability in accelerated matter.

Neutrino-antineutrino pairs are created in such conditions.

Provides an astrophysical upper limit on neutrino masses.

Abstract

We study the evolution of neutrinos in a background matter moving with a linear acceleration. The Dirac equation for a massive neutrino electroweakly interacting with background fermions is obtained in a comoving frame where matter is at rest. We solve this Dirac equation for ultrarelativistic neutrinos. The neutrino quantum states in matter moving with a linear acceleration are obtained. We demonstrate that the neutrino electroweak interaction with an accelerated matter leads to the vacuum instability which results in the neutrino-antineutrino pairs creation. We rederive the temperature of the Unruh radiation and find the correction to the Unruh effect due to the specific neutrino interaction with background fermions. As a possible application of the obtained results we discuss the neutrino pairs creation in a core collapsing supernova. The astrophysical upper limit on the neutrino masses is obtained.