QED corrections to the thermal neutrino interaction rate

Dec 12, 2023
27 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 05 (2024) 089
  • Published: May 8, 2024
e-Print:
Report number:
  • INT-PUB-23-049

Citations per year

20222023202407
Abstract: (Springer)
Motivated by precision computations of neutrino decoupling at MeV temperatures, we show how QED corrections to the thermal neutrino interaction rate can be related to the electron-positron spectral function as well as an effective ννγ\overline{\nu }\nu \gamma vertex. The spectral function is needed both in a timelike and in a spacelike domain, and for both of its physical polarization states (transverse and longitudinal with respect to spatial momentum). Incorporating an NLO evaluation of this spectral function, an estimate of the ννγ\overline{\nu }\nu \gamma vertex, and HTL resummation of scatterings mediated by soft Bose-enhanced t-channel photons, we compute the interaction rate as a function of the neutrino momentum and flavour. Effects on the – (0 . . . 2)% level are found, noticeably smaller than a previous estimate of a related quantity.
Note:
  • 27 pages. v2: references and clarifications added
  • Early Universe Particle Physics
  • Finite Temperature or Finite Density
  • Neutrino Interactions
  • neutrino: thermal
  • neutrino: interaction
  • quantum electrodynamics: correction
  • neutrino: momentum
  • neutrino: decoupling
  • spectral representation
  • temperature