Liouville term for neutrinos: Flavor structure and wave interpretation
Mar 13, 2018
19 pages
Published in:
- JCAP 05 (2018) 016
- Published: May 4, 2018
e-Print:
- 1803.04693 [hep-ph]
Report number:
- MPP-2018-14
View in:
Citations per year
Abstract: (IOP)
Neutrino production, absorption, transport, and flavor evolution in astrophysical environments is described by a kinetic equation D=−i[H,]+[]. Its basic elements are generalized occupation numbers , matrices in flavor space, that depend on time t, space x, and momentum p. The commutator expression encodes flavor conversion in terms of a matrix H of oscillation frequencies, whereas [] represents source and sink terms as well as collisions. The Liouville operator on the left hand side involves linear derivatives in t, x and p. The simplified expression D=∂t+⋅∂x for ultra-relativistic neutrinos was recently questioned in that flavor-dependent velocities should appear instead of the unit vector . Moreover, a new damping term was postulated as a result. We here derive the full flavor-dependent velocity structure of the Liouville term although it appears to cause only higher-order corrections. Moreover, we argue that on the scale of the neutrino oscillation length, the kinetic equation can be seen as a first-order wave equation.- neutrino: oscillation
- neutrino: production
- operator: Liouville
- correction: higher-order
- oscillation: frequency
- oscillation: length
- derivative: linear
- flavor
- structure
- velocity
References(101)
Figures(0)
- [1]
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
- [3]
- [4]
- [4]
- [6]
- [7]
- [7]
- [8]
- [8]
- [10]
- [10]
- [11]
- [11]
- [12]
- [12]
- [13]
- [13]
- [14]