Proto-neutron star evolution with improved charged-current neutrino-nucleon interactions

TL;DR

This study simulates proto-neutron star cooling with advanced neutrino interactions, highlighting the significant impact of convection on cooling timescales and neutrino emissions, using a novel numerical approach.

Contribution

It introduces a new simulation code that incorporates full charged-current neutrino-nucleon reactions and convective motions, providing more accurate proto-neutron star evolution models.

Findings

Convection significantly affects cooling times and neutrino signals.

Nuclear correlations have a minor impact compared to convection.

Full reaction set improves the realism of proto-neutron star simulations.

Abstract

We perform simulations of the Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling phase of proto-neutron stars with a new numerical code in spherical symmetry and using the quasi-static approximation. We use for the first time the full set of charged-current neutrino-nucleon reactions, including neutron decay and modified Urca processes, together with the energy-dependent numerical representation for the inclusion of nuclear correlations with random-phase approximation. Moreover, convective motions are taken into account within the mixing-length theory. As we vary the assumptions for computing neutrino-nucleon reaction rates, we show that the dominant effect on the cooling timescale, neutrino signal and composition of the neutrino-driven wind comes from the inclusion of convective motion. Computation of nuclear correlations within the random phase approximation, as compared to mean field approach, has a relatively small impact.