Subgrid modeling of neutrino oscillations in astrophysics

Abstract

Approximating neutrino oscillations as subgrid physics is an appealing prospect for simulators of core-collapse supernovae and neutron-star mergers. Because flavor instabilities quickly lead to quasisteady states in oscillation calculations, it is widely believed that flavor mixing can be approximated in astrophysical simulations by mapping unstable states onto the appropriate asymptotic ones. Subgrid models of this kind, however, are not self-consistent. The miscidynamic theory of quantum-coherent gases furnishes a subgrid model that is.