Parity nonconservation and stellar collapse
ACCORDING to the current theory, the evolution of sufficiently massive stars leads eventually to gravitational instability and collapse. After thermonuclear burning has stopped, dense stellar cores become unstable and collapse to form neutron stars (pulsars) or black holes. In both cases energy of the order of 0.1 Mc2 is released, mostly in the form of neutrinos and gravitational waves. As the radius of the core decreases, its magnetic field grows (magnetic flux is conserved) and can reach huge values of order 1012–1013 G. Even greater azimuthal fields (∼3 × 1015 G) can be generated by differential rotation of the core1. It will be shown here that neutrino emission in the collapse is asymmetric, as a result of parity nonconservation in weak interactions. Neutrinos and antineutrinos are emitted preferentially in the direction parallel to the local magnetic field of the collapsing core.
The neutrino radiation for a hot neutron star formation and the envelope outburst problem
With the equations of neutrino heat conductivity being used, the neutrino light curve is calculated for the spherically symmetrical collapse of an iron-oxygen 2M⊙ star (Figure 1) up to the formation of a hot hydrostatically equilibrium neutron star. The total energy, radiated in the form of muon and electron neutrinos, is 5.8×1053 erg (0.16Mc2). The mean neutrino particle energy is ∼12 MeV for all the time the collapse proceeds. The maximum neutrino luminosity value is equal to 3×1053 erg s−1. For a 10M⊙ star collapse, the luminosity maximum 3×1054 erg s−1 takes place just at the moment of the formation of a black hole inside the collapsing star. The total radiated energy in this case is about 0.08Mc2. The set of calculations, allowing for the deposition of momentum by means of neutrino-nuclear coherent scattering, brings us to a conclusion that the envelope outburst is only possible if the scattering cross-section is 50 times larger than the value experimentally accepted (inequality 20)).
NEUTRINO FLOW AND THE COLLAPSE OF STELLAR CORES fn1
Neutral current theories of neutrino interactions predict a scattering cross section for heavy nuclei proporional to the square of the nuclear mass. It has been shown that this high cross section may make it possible for the hot neutron star newly formed in stellar collapse to emit enough neutrinos to blow off the iron envelope that would surround the newly formed neutron star. The present work is an effort to repeat the above calculations with a better model for the neutrino interactions. 10 references. (auth)