# Active-sterile Neutrino Oscillations in Neutrino-driven Winds: Implications for Nucleosynthesis

## TL;DR

This study models active-sterile neutrino oscillations in supernova winds, revealing their significant impact on wind dynamics and nucleosynthesis, including shifts in element production during supernova evolution.

## Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent model incorporating active-sterile neutrino oscillations to analyze their effects on supernova wind properties and nucleosynthesis outcomes.

## Key findings

- Oscillations can reduce wind mass loss rate and velocity.
- Electron fraction changes significantly due to oscillations.
- Nucleosynthesis shifts from $^{45}$Sc to $^{86}$Kr and $^{90}$Zr.

## Abstract

A protoneutron star produced in a core-collapse supernova (CCSN) drives a wind by its intense neutrino emission. We implement active-sterile neutrino oscillations in a steady-state model of this neutrino-driven wind to study their effects on the dynamics and nucleosynthesis of the wind in a self-consistent manner. Using vacuum mixing parameters indicated by some experiments for a sterile $\nu_s$ of $\sim 1$ eV in mass, we observe interesting features of oscillations due to various feedback. For the higher $\nu_s$ mass values, we find that oscillations can reduce the mass loss rate and the wind velocity by a factor of $\sim 1.6$--2.7 and change the electron fraction critical to nucleosynthesis by a significant to large amount. In the most dramatic cases, oscillations shifts nucleosynthesis from dominant production of $^{45}$Sc to that of $^{86}$Kr and $^{90}$Zr during the early epochs of the CCSN evolution.