Matter- and magnetically-driven flavor conversion of neutrinos in magnetorotational collapses

TL;DR

This paper explores how magnetic fields and matter influence neutrino flavor conversion during the collapse of massive stars, with implications for neutrino detection and astrophysical observations.

Contribution

It introduces a three-dimensional simulation study of neutrino flavor conversion considering magnetic moments and magnetic fields in magnetorotational stellar collapses.

Findings

Resonant flavor conversion occurs in matter during collapse.

Magnetic moments induce neutrino-antineutrino mixing for Majorana neutrinos.

Neutrino event rates depend on collapse orientation and flavor conversion scenarios.

Abstract

The magnetorotational collapse of massive stars copiously emits neutrinos of all flavors, with a prominent hierarchy between the non-electron and electron flavor average energies. Relying on a three-dimensional neutrino-magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a $13 M_\odot$ progenitor, we investigate flavor conversion in matter. We find that, in addition to resonant flavor conversion of neutrinos and antineutrinos in matter, (anti)neutrinos experience chirality-flipping interactions due to their non-zero magnetic moment ($\mu \lesssim 10^{-12} \mu_B$) and large magnetic field in the source ($B \simeq 10^{15}$ G). For Majorana neutrinos, this leads to resonant flavor-changing neutrino-antineutrino mixing. The event rate expected from a Galactic collapse at current and next-generation neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube and Hyper-Kamiokande, strongly depends on the orientation of the magnetorotational collapse with respect to the observer direction and flavor conversion scenario. The event rate is expected to be larger for an observer facing head on the jet launched during the stellar collapse and peaks around $400$-$600$ ms after bounce. Our work highlights that understanding the rich phenomenology of flavor conversion in magnetorotational collapses is essential to take full advantage of the joint detection of neutrinos and gravitational waves from these sources.