English

Neutrino opacities in magnetic fields for binary neutron star merger simulations

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2026-04-10 v2 Nuclear Theory

Abstract

Neutrino interactions play a central role in transport and flavor evolution in the ejecta of binary neutron star mergers. Simulations suggest that neutron star mergers may produce magnetic fields as strong as 101710^{17} G, but computational difficulties have hampered the inclusion of magnetic field effects in neutrino interaction rates. In this paper we give approximate interaction rates for neutrinos in the presence of strong magnetic fields, including the effects of Landau quantization and anomalous magnetic moments with errors of order T/M\sqrt{T/M}. We also comment on a neutrino production channel from individual neutrons that can produce low-energy ννˉ\nu \bar{\nu} pairs even at low density.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.18051,
  title  = {Neutrino opacities in magnetic fields for binary neutron star merger simulations},
  author = {Mia Kumamoto and Catherine Welch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.18051},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

26 pages, 9 figures