Production of single plasmons and photons by neutrinos in a medium

Abstract

A neutrino passing through a dielectric medium with an index of refraction greater than unity can emit a single photon into the medium, and, in a related process, a neutrino passing through a conductor or semiconductor can emit a single plasmon into the medium. The rates for other processes are calculated, taking a simple electron gas as the medium for the plasmon calculation. Two forms of coupling of the neutrino to the electrons in the medium are considered: (1) the left-handed current coupling of the standard model; (2) a neutrino magnetic moment coupling. For the case of the largest magnetlc moments allowed by other considerations, the plasmon process could be on the verge of rendering solar "plasmon" electron neutrinos (with energies = 2 keV) observable. The plasmon process also has some potential in the detection and identification of neutrinos of mass > 10 keV, and large magnetic moments.PACS number(s1: 14.60. Gh,

Radiative decay of keV-mass sterile neutrino in magnetized electron plasma

“…This process has been considered by several groups in the different cases: vacuum [12], electron plasma [13][14][15][16][17][18], magnetic fields of different configurations [19][20][21][22][23] and magnetized plasma [24][25][26]. The main point of the work we have done [26] was to extend the previous analysis by including the modified photon dispersion relation.…”

Induced charge of neutrinos in a medium

“…This has been motivated by the attractive suggestion that the solar neutrino problem [1] can be solved by the resonant oscillation mechanism [2], which hinges on the characteristics of the neutrino propagation in a background medium [3]. Inspired by its potentially important effects, the neutrino interactions in a material environment have also been studied in some detail [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. Of primary interest along these lines is the study of the electromagnetic interactions of neutrinos in a medium.…”

Transition radiation from the neutrino-photon interaction in matter

“…In particular, because of their weak interactions with the charged leptons and nucleons in a background, neutrinos acquire an effective coupling to the electromagnetic field [6,7]. This fact can give rise to several interesting physical processes: plasmon decay [8,9], absorption of electromagnetic waves [10], radiative neutrino decay [11], and Cherenkov radiation by chiral neutrinos [12,13].…”