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| Paper IPM / P / 17093 |
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In this article, we study the resonant production of low-mass vector mediators from neutrino-antineutrino interactions in the core of proto-neutron stars. We show that this process can significantly alter neutrino diffusion in the first seconds after the supernova explosion, providing a new way to test neutrino self-interactions. Taking into account the radial dependence of the density, energy, and temperature inside the proto-neutron star, we compute the neutrino-antineutrino interaction rate in the star interior in two well-motivated new physics scenarios, namely \ubl and \lmultau. First, we determine the values of the coupling above which the neutrino self-interaction dominates over the Standard Model neutrino-nucleon scattering. Due to their vanishing chemical potentials, this effect is more important for muon and tau neutrinos. We argue that, although in this regime a redistribution of the neutrino energies might take place, this only affects a small part of the neutrino population and it cannot be constrained with the SN~1987A data. Thus, contrary to previous claims, the region of the parameter space where \lmultau explains the discrepancy in the muon anomalous magnetic moment is not ruled out. We then focus on small gauge couplings, for which the decay length of the new gauge boson is comparable to (or larger than) the size of proto-neutron star. We show that in this regime, the resonant production of a long-lived $Z'$ and its subsequent decay into neutrinos outside the proto-neutron star can significantly reduce the duration of the neutrino burst, and values of the coupling as small as $O(10^{-9})$ can be probed. This rules out new areas of the parameter space of the \lmultau and \ubl models. These results are relevant for any other model that features new MeV-scale mediators that couple to the neutrino sector.
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