Cherenkov plasmons emission by primordial neutrinos

Abstract

We study the emission of Cherenkov plasmons by the gas of neutrinos with nonzero temperature and chemical potential. The background plasma, consisting of charged leptons, is taken to be nonrelativistic. The energy emission rate is obtained for longitudinal plasmons. To get the neutrino emissivity we average quantum field theory matrix element over the distribution functions of incoming and outgoing particles. Our results are applied for the description of the cooling down of a neutrino cluster formed in the early universe. Such clusters can exist owing to the neutrino interaction with a hypothetical light scalar boson. Using particular cluster parameters, we demonstrate that the proposed cooling mechanism is efficient for some clusters. We find the temperature range where the proposed cooling channel is valid. Some useful calculations of the polarization tensor, as well as the plasmon form factors and their dispersion relations are also provided.