Neutrino oscillations in a neutrino-dominated accretion disk around a Kerr BH

Abstract

In the binary-driven hypernova (BdHN) model of long gamma-ray bursts, a carbon-oxygen star explodes as a supernova (SN) in presence of a neutron star binary companion in close orbit. Hypercritical (i.e. highly super-Eddington) accretion of the ejecta matter onto the neutron star sets in, making it reach the critical mass with consequent formation of a Kerr black hole (BH). We have recently shown that, during the accretion process onto the neutron star, fast neutrino flavour oscillations occur. Numerical simulations of the above system show that a part of the ejecta keeps bound to the newborn Kerr BH, leading to a new process of hypercritical accretion. We here address, also for this phase of the BdHN, the occurrence of neutrino flavour oscillations given the extreme conditions of high density (up to 10 12 g cm −3 ) and temperatures (up to tens of MeV) inside this disk. We estimate the evolution of the electronic and non-electronic neutrino content within the two-flavour formalism (ν e ν x ) under the action of neutrino collective effects by neutrino self-interactions. We find that neutrino oscillations inside the disk have frequencies between ∼ (10 5 -10 9 ) s −1 , leading the disk to achieve flavour equipartition. This implies that the energy deposition rate by neutrino annihilation (ν + ν → e − + e + ) in the vicinity of the Kerr BH, is smaller than previous estimates in the literature not accounting by flavour oscillations inside the disk. The exact value of the reduction factor depends on the ν e and ν x optical depths but it can be as high as ∼ 5. The results of this work are a first step toward the analysis of neutrino oscillations in a novel astrophysical context and, as such, deserve further attention.