Neutrinos and electrons in background matter: a new approach

Abstract

We present a rather powerful method in investigations of different phenomena that can appear when neutrinos and electrons are moving in the background matter. This method is based on the use of the modified Dirac equations for the particles wave functions, in which the correspondent effective potentials that account for the matter influence on particles are included. The developed approach establishes a basis for investigation of different phenomena which can arise when neutrinos and electrons move in dense media, including those peculiar for astrophysical and cosmological environments. The approach developed is similar to the Furry representation of quantum electrodynamics, widely used for description of particles interactions in the presence of external electromagnetic fields, and it works when a macroscopic amount of the background particles are confined within the scale of a neutrino or electron de Broglie wave lengths. We consider the modified Dirac equations for neutrinos (of both Dirac and Majorana types) and electrons having the standard model interactions with the background matter, however generalization to extensions of the standard model is just straightforward. To illustrate how the developed method works, we elaborate the quantum theories of the spin light of neutrino ($SL\nu$) and spin light of electron ($SLe$) in matter.