Neutrino quantum kinetics in a core-collapse supernova

Abstract

Our understanding of neutrino flavor conversion in the supernova core is still preliminary, despite its likely relevance to the neutrino-driven supernova mechanism. We present multi-angle and multi-energy numerical simulations of neutrino quantum kinetics within a spherically symmetric shell in the proximity of the region of neutrino decoupling. We rely on inputs from a one-dimensional core-collapse supernova model with a mass of $18.6\ M_\odot$ and find that, at early post-bounce times ($t_{\mathrm pb} \lesssim 0.5$~s), no crossing is present in the angular distribution of the electron neutrino lepton number and flavor conversion is triggered by slow collective instabilities. Angular crossings appear for $t_{\textrm{pb}} \gtrsim 0.5$~s and fast flavor conversion leads to flavor equipartition, with the spectral energy distribution of $\nu_{e}$ ($\bar{\nu}_{e}$) and $\nu_{x}$ ($\bar{\nu}_{x}$) becoming comparable. Notably, flavor equipartition is not a generic outcome of fast flavor conversion, rather it is a consequence of the relatively similar properties of neutrinos of different flavors characterizing the late accretion phase. Artificially tweaking the collision term to introduce an electron lepton number angular crossing for $t_{\mathrm{pb}} \lesssim 0.05$~s, we observe that flavor equipartition is not achieved. While our findings are restricted to a specific supernova model, and they only take into account the feedback of the neutrino background on the flavor conversion, they suggest a rich phenomenology in the supernova core as a function of the post-bounce time which needs to be further explored to assess its impact on the explosion mechanism.