Physics of synchronized neutrino oscillations caused by self-interactions

Institute for Nuclear Research of the Academy of Sciences of Russia,60th October Anniversary Prospect 7a, Moscow 117312, Russia(February 5, 2002)In the early universe or in some regions of supernovae, the neutrino refractive index is dominated bythe neutrinosthemselves. Several previous studieshave found numerically that these self-interactionshave the effect of coupling different neutrino modes in such a way as to synchronize the flavoroscillations which otherwise would depend on the energy of a given mode. We provide a simpleexplanation for this baffling phenomenon in analogy to a system of magnetic dipoles which arecoupled by their self-interactions to form one large magnetic dipole which then precesses coherentlyin a weak external magnetic field. In this picture the synchronized neutrino oscillations are perfectlyanalogous to the weak-field Zeeman effect in atoms.PACS number(s): 14.60.Pq,I. INTRODUCTION

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