Neutrino propagation in an electron background with an inhomogeneous magnetic field

Abstract

We study the electromagnetic coupling of a neutrino that propagates in a two-stream electron background medium. Specifically, we calculate the electromagnetic vertex function for a medium that consists of a \emph{normal} electron background plus another electron \emph{stream} background that is moving with a velocity four-vector $v^\mu$ relative to the normal background. The results can be used as the basis for studying the neutrino electromagnetic properties and various processes in such a medium. As an application, we calculate the neutrino dispersion relation in the presence of an external magnetic field ($\vec B$), focused in the case in which $B$ is inhomogeneous, keeping only the terms of the lowest order in $1/m^2_W$ and linear in the $B$ and its gradient. We show that the dispersion relation contains additional anisotropic terms involving the derivatives of $\vec B$, such as the gradient of $\hat k\cdot(\vec v\times\vec B)$, which involve the stream background velocity, and a term of the form $\hat k\cdot(\nabla\times \vec B)$ that can be present in the absence of the stream background, in addition to a term of the form $\hat k\cdot\vec v$ and the well known term $\hat k\cdot\vec B$ that arises in the constant $\vec B$ case. The derivative-dependent terms are even under a $CP$ transformation. As a result, in contrast to the latter two just mentioned, they depend on the sum of the particle and antiparticle densities and therefore can be non-zero in a $CP$-symmetric medium in which the particle and antiparticle densities are equal.