Neutrino diffusion in the pasta phase matter within the Thomas-Fermi approach

Abstract

The behavior and properties of neutrinos in non-uniform nuclear matter, surrounded by electrons and other neutrinos are studied. The nuclear matter itself is modeled by the non-linear Walecka model, where the so-called nuclear pasta phase is described using the Thomas-Fermi approximation, solved in a Wigner-Seitz cell. We obtain the total cross-section and mean-free path for the neutrinos, taking into account scattering and neutrino absorption, and compare the final results for two known kind of model parametrizations: one in which non-linear effects in the strong sector are explicitly written in the model Lagrangian and another one in which the coupling constants are density dependent. The solution for this problem is important for the understanding of neutrino diffusion in a newly born neutron star after a supernova explosion.