Neutral-current neutrino reactions in the supernova environment

Abstract

We study the neutral-current neutrino scattering for four nuclei in the iron region. We evaluate the cross sections for the relevant temperatures during the supernova core collapse and derive Gamow-Teller distributions from large-scale shell-model calculations. We show that the thermal population of the excited states significantly enhances the cross sections at low neutrino energies. Calculations of the outgoing neutrino spectra indicate the prospect of neutrino upscattering at finite temperatures. Both results are particularly notable in even-even nuclei.