English

Neutrino Propagation in a Strongly Magnetized Medium

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-11-10 v4 Astrophysics

Abstract

We derive general expressions at the one-loop level for the coefficients of the covariant structure of the neutrino self-energy in the presence of a constant magnetic field. The neutrino energy spectrum and index of refraction are obtained for neutral and charged media in the strong-field limit (MWBme,T,μ,pM_{W}\gg \sqrt{B}\gg m_{e},T,\mu ,| \mathbf{p}| ) using the lowest Landau level approximation. The results found within the lowest Landau level approximation are numerically validated, summing in all Landau levels, for strong BT2B\gg T^{2} and weakly-strong BT2B \gtrsim T^{2} fields. The neutrino energy in leading order of the Fermi coupling constant is expressed as the sum of three terms: a kinetic-energy term, a term of interaction between the magnetic field and an induced neutrino magnetic moment, and a rest-energy term. The leading radiative correction to the kinetic-energy term depends linearly on the magnetic field strength and is independent of the chemical potential. The other two terms are only present in a charged medium. For strong and weakly-strong fields, it is found that the field-dependent correction to the neutrino energy in a neutral medium is much larger than the thermal one. Possible applications to cosmology and astrophysics are considered.

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0404234,
  title  = {Neutrino Propagation in a Strongly Magnetized Medium},
  author = {E. Elizalde and E. J. Ferrer and V. de la Incera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0404234},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

23 pages, 4 figures. Corrected misprints in references