Three flavors are better than one

Every Neapolitan ice cream lover knows that three flavors are better than one. A new study from Northwestern University has unleashed more clues as to how and why stars die by studying all three “flavors” associated with supernovae.

Scientists look at neutrinos (subatomic particles) for important information about supernova explosions. Previous studies have identified three “flavors” of neutrinos, but many researchers have simplified their research on this topic by ignoring “chocolate” and “strawberry” and studying “vanilla.” I continued.

Researchers at Northwestern University have begun to deepen their knowledge of dying stars and unravel existing hypotheses by including all three flavors in their studies.

This study was published in Physical Review Letters on Wednesday, December 16th.

In a supernova explosion, 99% of the energy of a dead star is released through neutrinos. Neutrinos are the first messengers to reach Earth and indicate that a star has died because it travels at near the speed of light and interacts with matter so weakly.

Since its first discovery in the 1950s, particle physicists and astrophysicists have made significant advances in understanding, detecting and creating neutrinos. However, to limit the complexity of the model, many people studying subatomic particles make assumptions to simplify the study. For example, non-electron neutrinos behave the same when propelled from supernovae.

Part of the reason that makes neutrino research so complicated is that they come from compact objects (inside the stars) and then interact with each other, said senior author Manibrata Sen. .. Symmetry program at the University of California, Berkeley. That is, when one flavor is affected, like the melting tub of Neapolitan ice cream, its evolution is affected by all other flavors in the system.

“We can’t create conditions for neutrinos to interact on Earth,” Sen said. “But in a compact object, the density of neutrinos is very high, so each neutrino interacts because there are so many neutrinos around.”

As a result, when a huge number of neutrinos are carefully sent during a major explosion of a core-collapsed supernova, they begin to oscillate. Interactions between neutrinos change the characteristics and behavior of the entire system, creating connected relationships.

Therefore, if the neutrino density is high, some of the neutrinos will replace the flavor. When different flavors are emitted in different directions deep inside the star, the conversion occurs rapidly and is called “fast conversion”. Interestingly, this study found that as the number of neutrinos increased, so did their conversion rate, regardless of mass.

In this study, scientists created a non-linear simulation of “fast transformations” in the presence of three neutrino flavors. Fast conversion is demonstrated by the interaction of neutrinos to change flavor. Researchers have removed the assumption that the three flavors of neutrinos (muon neutrinos, electron neutrinos, and tau neutrinos) have the same angular distribution and give different distributions to each.

Two flavor setups with the same concept examine electron neutrinos and “x” neutrinos. Where x is either a muon neutrino or a tau neutrino, the difference between the two is not important.

“We have shown that they are all really related, and ignoring the presence of muons is not a good strategy,” Sen said. “By including them, we find that past results are incomplete and that running a study of three flavors can significantly change the results.”

This study can have significant implications for both particles and astrophysics, but even the model used in this study included simplifications. The team wants to make the results more general by including spatial dimensions in addition to the momentum and time elements.

Meanwhile, Sen said he hopes that his team’s research will help the community make their research more complex.

“We’re trying to convince the community that when we take these fast conversions into account, we need to use all three flavors to understand them,” he said. “A correct understanding of high-speed oscillations can actually hold the key to why some stars explode from supernovae.”

Survey report: “Fast Flavor Conversion in Supernova: The Rise of Mutau Neutrinos”

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Northwestern University

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