Neutrino spin oscillations in polarized matter

Abstract

We study the neutrino spin oscillations, i.e., neutrino spin precession caused by the neutrino interaction with matter polarized by external magnetic field (or, equivalently, by the interaction of the induced magnetic moment (IMM) of a neutrino with the magnetic field). In the analysis, we consider realistic conditions inside supernovae and discuss both the Dirac and Majorana cases. We show that due to the interaction with the polarized matter a neutrino flux from a supernova suffers additional attenuation at low neutrino energies. Another possible effect is that when taken together the effects of conventional magnetic moment and polarized matter can cancel each other so that under certain condition the oscillations disappear. We note that this can lead to the appearance of a characteristic maximum in the spectrum of electron neutrinos from supernovae. Accounting for neutrino mixing (in the two-flavor approximation) can significantly increase (almost twice) the effective value of the IMM of the electron neutrino. As a result, electron neutrinos with twice as high energy will be able to participate in the processes of spin conversion. Various feedback mechanisms accompanying the considered phenomena are also discussed. Keywords: Neutrino spin oscillations, Polarized matter, Magnetic fields, Magnetic moments, Supernovae