Physics of synchronized neutrino oscillations caused by self-interactions

Abstract

In the early universe or in some regions of supernovas, the neutrino refractive index is dominated by the neutrinos themselves. Several previous studies have found numerically that these self-interactions have the effect of coupling different neutrino modes in such a way as to synchronize the flavor oscillations which otherwise would depend on the energy of a given mode. We provide a simple explanation for this baffling phenomenon in analogy to a system of magnetic dipoles which are coupled by their self-interactions to form one large magnetic dipole which then precesses coherently in a weak external magnetic field. In this picture the synchronized neutrino oscillations are perfectly analogous to the weak-field Zeeman effect in atoms.