New Supernova Constraints on Neutrino Magnetic Dipole Moments

by Martina La Rosa

Thursday 12 Nov 2026, 16:45 → 17:00 Europe/Rome

1/1-2 - Aula "C. Voci" (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Edificio Marzolo)

Neutrinos may have non-standard magnetic dipole moments μ_ν . These would cause their conversion into sterile, right-handed states in the dense cores of supernovae (SNe), where the electromagnetic fluctuations produced by the charged plasma can flip their helicity.
The streaming right-handed neutrinos with 100-MeV energies could convert back to standard neutrinos in the Galactic magnetic field, leading to a high-energy neutrino flux which was not observed from the historical SN 1987A. We reexamine the production rates by including scattering off both protons and electrons and, drawing on recent progress in SN simulations and in modeling the Milky Way magnetic field, we update the bounds on neutrino magnetic dipole moments.