Neutrino scattering in supernovae and spin correlations of a unitary gas

TL;DR

This paper models the neutrinosphere in supernovae as a unitary gas to study how universal spin and density correlations affect neutrino scattering, revealing significant cross section reductions that impact supernova explosion dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of modeling the neutrinosphere as a unitary gas to incorporate correlation effects into neutrino scattering calculations.

Findings

Significant reduction in neutrino scattering cross sections due to correlations.

Correlations can be studied in cold atom experiments.

Potential impact on supernova explosion delay times.

Abstract

Core collapse supernova simulations can be sensitive to neutrino interactions near the neutrinosphere. This is the surface of last scattering. We model the neutrinosphere region as a warm unitary gas of neutrons. A unitary gas is a low density system of particles with large scattering lengths. We calculate modifications to neutrino scattering cross sections because of the universal spin and density correlations of a unitary gas. These correlations can be studied in laboratory cold atom experiments. We find significant reductions in cross sections, compared to free space interactions, even at relatively low densities. These reductions could reduce the delay time from core bounce to successful explosion in multidimensional supernova simulations.