Uncovering the Matter-Neutrino Resonance

TL;DR

This paper investigates Matter Neutrino Resonances (MNRs), providing generalized conditions, analytical predictions, and stability analysis to understand their role in neutrino flavor evolution in astrophysical environments.

Contribution

It introduces generalized resonance conditions for MNRs, analyzes their adiabatic evolution, and applies stability analysis to predict oscillation behaviors, advancing understanding of neutrino flavor transitions.

Findings

Symmetric MNR transitions involve simultaneous flavor transformation of neutrinos and antineutrinos.

Analytical predictions align well with numerical calculations across different scenarios.

Linearized stability analysis predicts locations of bipolar oscillations in regions where MNRs are ineffective.

Abstract

Matter Neutrino Resonances (MNRs) can drastically modify neutrino flavor evolution in astrophysical environments and may significantly impact nucleosynthesis. Here we further investigate the underlying physics of MNR type flavor transitions. We provide generalized resonance conditions and make analytical predictions for the behavior of the system. We discuss the adiabatic evolution of these transitions, considering both Symmetric and Standard scenarios. Symmetric MNR transitions differ from Standard MNR transitions in that both neutrinos and antineutrinos can completely transform to other flavors simultaneously. We provide an example of the simplest system in which such transitions can occur with a neutrino and an antineutrino having a single energy and emission angle. We further apply linearized stability analysis to predict the location of self-induced nutation type (or bipolar) oscillations due to neutrino-neutrino interactions in the regions where MNR is ineffective. In all cases, we compare our analytical predictions to numerical calculations.