Flavor isospin waves in one-dimensional axisymmetric neutrino gases

Flavor oscillations can occur on very short spatial and temporal scales in the dense neutrino media in a core-collapse supernova (CCSN) or binary neutron star merger (BNSM) event. Although the dispersion relations (DRs) of the fast neutrino oscillations can be obtained by linearizing the equations of motion (EoM) before the emergence of any significant flavor conversion, one largely depends on numerical calculations to understand this interesting phenomenon in the nonlinear regime. In this work we demonstrate that there exist nontrivial solutions to the flavor EoM that govern the fast oscillations in one-dimensional axisymmetric neutrino gases. These solutions represent a coherent flavor isospin wave similar to the magnetic spin wave in a lattice of magnetic dipoles. We also compute the DRs of such waves in some example cases which are closely related to the DRs of the fast neutrino oscillations obtained in the linear regime. This result sheds new light on the long-term behavior of fast neutrino oscillations which can have various implications for the CCSN and BNSM events.

Automated summary

This study investigates flavor oscillations of fast neutrinos in core-collapse supernovae or binary neutron star mergers, finding nontrivial solutions through numerical calculations and nonlinear analysis. The results suggest the existence of a coherent flavor isospin wave similar to a magnetic spin wave in a lattice of magnetic dipoles.