Neutrino Scattering in Heterogeneous Supernova Plasmas

Abstract

Neutrinos in core collapse supernovae are likely trapped by neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we calculate neutrino mean free paths and ion-ion correlation functions for heterogeneous plasmas. Mean free paths are systematically shorter in plasmas containing a mixture of ions compared to a plasma composed of a single ion species. This is because neutrinos can scatter from concentration fluctuations. The dynamical response function of a heterogeneous plasma is found to have an extra peak at low energies describing the diffusion of concentration fluctuations. Our exact molecular dynamics results for the static structure factor reduce to the Debye Huckel approximation, but only in the limit of very low momentum transfers.