MONTE CARLO STUDY OF SUPERNOVA NEUTRINO

SPECTRA FORMATION
Mathias Th. Keil and Georg G. Raelt
Max-Plan k-Institut f
ur Physik (Werner-Heisenberg-Institut)
F
ohringer Ring 6, 80805 M
un hen, Germany

Hans-Thomas Janka

Max-Plan k-Institut f
ur Astrophysik
Karl-S harzs hild-Str. 1, 85741 Gar hing, Germany

ABSTRACT

The neutrino ux and spe tra formation in a supernova ore is studied by using a Monte Carlo
ode. The dominant opa ity ontribution for  is elasti s attering on nu leons  N ! N,
where  always stands for either  or  . In addition we swit h on or o a variety of pro esses
whi h allow for the ex hange of energy or the reation and destru tion of neutrino pairs, notably
nu leon bremsstrahlung NN ! NN  , the pair annihilation pro esses e+e !   and ee !
  , re oil in elasti nu leon s attering, elasti s attering on ele trons  e ! e  and elasti
s attering on ele tron neutrinos and anti-neutrinos e ! e and e ! e. The least
important pro esses are neutrino-neutrino s attering and e+e annihilation. The formation of
the spe tra and uxes is dominated by the nu leoni pro esses, i.e. bremsstrahlung and elasti
s attering with re oil, but also ee annihilation and e s attering ontribute on a signi ant
level. When all pro esses are in luded, the spe tral shape of the emitted neutrino ux is always
\pin hed" and an be represented by a nominal Fermi-Dira fun tion with an ee tive degenera y
parameter in the range 1{2, depending on the details of the ba kground model. In all of our ases
we nd that the average  and  energy ex eeds the average e energy by only a small amount,
10% being a typi al number. Depending on the density, temperature, and omposition prole,
the avor-dependent luminosities Le , Le , and L an mutually dier from ea h other by up
to a fa tor of two in either dire tion.
Subje t headings:

diusion | neutrinos | supernovae: general

important for the SN sho k revival (Fuller et al.

1992) and r-pro ess nu leosynthesis (Qian et al.
1993), although the experimentally favored small
neutrino mass dieren es suggest that this is not
the ase. On the other hand, for some of the
putative neutrino mixing parameters, notably the
large-mixing angle solution of the solar neutrino
problem, avor os illations are quite relevant for
the interpretation of the SN 1987A neutrino signal (Jegerlehner, Neubig, & Raelt 1996, Lunardini & Smirnov 2001a, Ka helriess et al. 2002,
Smirnov, Spergel, & Bah all 1994). More impor-

1. INTRODUCTION

In numeri al ore- ollapse supernova (SN) simulations, the transport of - and  -neutrinos has
re eived s ant attention be ause their exa t uxes
and spe tra are probably not ru ial for the explosion me hanism. However, the re ent experimental eviden e for neutrino os illations implies
that the avor-dependent uxes and spe tra emitted by a SN will be partly swapped so that at
any distan e from the sour e the a tual uxes
and spe tra an be very dierent from those originally produ ed. In prin iple, this ee t an be
1

tantly, the high-statisti s neutrino signal from a

future gala ti SN may allow one to dierentiate between some of the neutrino mixing s enarios
whi h explain the presently available data (Chiu
& Kuo 2000, Dighe & Smirnov 2000, Dutta et al.
2000, Fuller, Haxton, & M Laughlin 1999, Lunardini & Smirnov 2001b, Minakata & Nunokawa
2001, Takahashi & Sato 2002). Even when the
solution of the solar neutrino problem has been
settled, the magnitude of the small mixing angle
13 and the question if the neutrino mass hierar hy is normal or inverted will remain open and an
be settled only by future pre ision measurements
at dedi ated long-baseline os illation experiments
(Barger et al. 2001, Cervera et al. 2000, Freund,
Huber, & Lindner 2001) and/or the observation of
a future gala ti SN.
The usefulness of SN neutrinos for diagnosing
avor os illations depends on the avor dependen e of the uxes and spe tra at the sour e. Very
rudely, a SN ore is a bla k-body sour e of neutrinos of all avors whi h are emitted from the surfa e of the proto-neutron star that was born after
ollapse. It is the avor-dependent details of the
neutrino transport in the neutron-star atmosphere
whi h ause the spe tral and ux dieren es that
an lead to interesting os illation ee ts.
The e and e opa ity is dominated by the
harged- urrent
pro esses en ! pe and ep !
ne+, rea tions that allow for the ex hange of energy and lepton number between the medium and
the neutrinos. Therefore, it is straightforward to
dene an energy-dependent neutrinosphere where
this rea tion freezes out for neutrinos of a parti ular energy. This sphere yields a thermal ontribution to the neutrino ux at the onsidered energy.
The atmosphere of the proto-neutron star is neutron ri h, providing for a larger e opa ity than
for e so that for a given energy the e ux originates at deeper and thus hotter layers than the
e ux. In other words, a larger fra tion of the e
ux emerges with high energies. This simple observation explains the usual hierar hy he i > he i
of the mean energies. The spe tra are found to
be \pin hed", meaning that the high-energy tail
is suppressed relative to that of a thermal spe trum with the same mean energy (Janka & Hillebrandt 1989a,b). This numeri al result an be understood analyti ally by onstru ting the neutrino
spe trum from the uxes emitted by the energy-

dependent neutrinospheres whi h are at dierent

temperatures (Myra, Lattimer, & Yahil 1988, Giovanoni, Ellison, & Bruenn 1989).
The formation of the , ,  , and  spe tra is far more ompli ated. The opa ity is dominated by the neutral- urrent s attering on nu leons,  N ! N, a pro ess whi h prevents
neutrino free streaming, but is unable to hange
the neutrino number and is usually onsidered to
be ine ient at ex hanging energy. (Here and
in the following  stands for either  or  .)
Neutrino pairs an be reated by nu leon bremsstrahlung, NN ! NN  , and pair annihilation,
e e+ !   or ee !  , while   pairs
are absorbed by the inverse rea tions. In addition, energy is ex hanged by elasti s attering on
leptons, notably  e ! e  , by the re oil in
nu leon s attering, N ! N , and by inelasti
s attering on nu leons  NN ! NN , a hannel that is the \ rossed pro ess" of bremsstrahlung. For a given neutrino energy these pro esses
freeze out at dierent radii so that one an dene a
\number sphere" for the pair pro esses, an \energy
sphere" for the energy-ex hange pro esses, and
a \transport sphere" for elasti nu leon s attering with Rnumber < Renergy < Rtransport (Suzuki
1990). The region between the number sphere
and the transport sphere plays the role of a s attering atmosphere be ause neutrinos an not be
reated or destroyed. They propagate by diusion
and an still ex hange energy with the ba kground
medium.
Usually the  transport sphere is deeper than
the e sphere so that numeri al simulations nd
h i > he i > he i. This hierar hy is the main
motivation for the proposed use of SN neutrinos
as a diagnosti for neutrino os illations. However,
the quantitative statements found in the literature
range from h i being 20% to nearly a fa tor of 2
larger than he i; for a review see Janka (1993) and
Se . 4.2. Of ourse, the mean energies and their
ratios hange signi antly between the SN boun e,
a retion phase, and the later neutron-star ooling phase. Therefore, one must distinguish arefully between instantaneous uxes and spe tra and
the time-integrated values. While for the analysis
of the sparse SN 1987A data only time-integrated
values make sense, a future gala ti SN may well
produ e enough events to study the instantaneous
uxes and spe tra (Barger, Marfatia, & Wood
2

2001, Minakata et al. 2001).

The overall energy emitted by a SN is often
said to be equipartitioned among all six neutrino
degrees of freedom. In some numeri al simulations
the neutrino luminosities are indeed astonishingly
equal for all avors (Totani et al. 1998), while
other simulations easily nd a fa tor of two differen e between, say, the  and e luminosities,
at least during the a retion phase (Mezza appa
et al. 2001). Therefore, it is by no means obvious
how pre isely equipartition an be assumed for the
purpose of diagnosing neutrino os illations.
Another important feature is the neutrino spe tral shape, notably the amount of pin hing. If
one ould assume with onden e that the instantaneous spe tra of all avors are pin hed at the
sour e, and if the measured SN neutrino spe tra were instead found to be anti-pin hed, this
ee t would be a powerful diagnosti for the partial spe tral swapping aused by avor os illations
(Dighe & Smirnov 2000).
Unfortunately, the existing literature does not
allow one to develop a lear view on these \ne
points" of the neutrino uxes and spe tra, largely
be ause not enough attention has been paid to
the  and  emission from a SN ore. The
published full numeri al SN ollapse simulations
have not yet in luded the bremsstrahlung pro ess
or nu leon re oils (but see rst results of stateof-the-art models in Rampp et al. 2002), even
though it is no longer ontroversial that these effe ts are important (Janka et al. 1996, Burrows
et al. 2000, Hannestad & Raelt 1998, Raelt
2001, Suzuki 1991, 1993, Thompson, Burrows, &
Horvath 2000). Moreover, some of the interesting information su h as the spe tral pin hing was
usually not do umented.
Another problem with self- onsistent hydrodynami al simulations is that the models with the
most elaborate neutrino transport usually do not
explode so that even the most re ent state-ofthe-art simulations do not rea h beyond the a retion phase at a few hundred millise onds after boun e (Rampp & Janka 2000, Mezza appa
et al. 2001), thus not providing any information on
the neutron-star ooling phase. Su essful multidimensional models of the explosion (e.g., Fryer &
Warren 2002, Fryer 1999 and referen es therein)
were also not ontinued to the neutron-star ooling phase. These simulations, moreover, treat

the neutrino transport only in a very approximate way and do not provide spe tral information. The al ulations performed by the Livermore
group also yield robust explosions (Totani et al.
1998). They in lude a mixing-length treatment of
the phenomenon of neutron-nger onve tion in
the neutron star, that in reases the early neutrino
luminosities and thus enhan es the energy transfer
by neutrinos to the postsho k medium (Wilson &
Mayle 1993). Whether neutron-nger onve tion
a tually o urs inside the neutrinosphere and has
ee ts on a ma ros opi s ale, however, is an unsettled issue.
We will follow here an alternative approa h to
full hydrodynami al simulations, i.e. we will study
neutrino transport on the ba kground of an assumed neutron-star atmosphere. While this approa h la ks hydrodynami al self- onsisten y, it
has the great advantage of allowing one to study
systemati ally the in uen e of various pie es of
mi ros opi input physi s and of the medium prole. The goal is to develop a learer pi ture of the
generi properties of the SN neutrino spe tra and
uxes and what they depend upon.
To this end we have adapted the Monte Carlo
ode of Janka (1987, 1991) and added new mi rophysi s to it. We go beyond the work of Janka
& Hillebrandt (1989a,b) in that we in lude the
bremsstrahlung pro ess, nu leon re oils, ee pair
annihilation into  , and s attering of  on e
and e. With these extensions we investigate the
neutrino transport systemati ally for a variety of
medium proles that are representative for dierent SN phases. One of us (Raelt 2001) has re ently studied the  spe tra-formation problem
with the limitation to nu leoni pro esses (elasti
and inelasti s attering, re oils, bremsstrahlung),
to Maxwell-Boltzmann statisti s for the neutrinos,
and plane-parallel geometry. Our present study
omplements this more s hemati work by in luding the leptoni pro esses, Fermi-Dira statisti s,
and spheri al geometry. In addition we apply our
Monte Carlo ode to the transport of e and e
and thus are able to ompare the avor-dependent
uxes and spe tra.
In Se . 2 we rst assess the relative importan e
of dierent pro esses in terms of their energydependent \thermalization depth". In this ontext we introdu e a number of stellar ba kground
models. In Se . 3 we perform a Monte Carlo study
3

When this energy dependen e is not too steep

it makes sense to dene an average thermalization
depth, i.e. an \energy sphere" that for pair reating pro esses is equal to the \number sphere." For
nu leon bremsstrahlung this requirement is well
fullled (Raelt 2001) so that one may pi ture
the energy sphere as a bla kbody surfa e that inje ts neutrinos into the s attering atmosphere and
absorbs those s attered ba k. The neutrino ux
and spe trum emerging from the transport sphere
is then easily understood in terms of the energydependent transmission probability of the bla kbody spe trum laun hed at the energy sphere.
The transport ross se tion s ales as 2, implying
that the transmitted ux spe trum is shifted to
lower energies relative to the temperature at the
energy sphere. This simple \lter ee t" a ounts
surprisingly well for the emerging ux spe trum
(Raelt 2001). For typi al onditions the mean
ux energies are 50{60% of those orresponding
to the bla kbody onditions at the energy sphere.
Moreover, it is straightforward to understand
that the ee tive temperature of the emerging ux
spe trum is not overly sensitive to the exa t lo ation of the energy sphere. If the energy-ex hange
rea tion is somewhat more ee tive, the energy
sphere is at a larger radius with a lower medium
temperature. However, the s attering atmosphere
has a smaller opti al depth so that the higherenergy neutrinos are less suppressed by the lter ee t, partly ompensating the smaller energysphere temperature. For typi al situations Raelt
(2001) found that hanging the bremsstrahlung
rate by a fa tor of 3 would hange the emerging
neutrino energies only by some 10%. This nding
suggests that the emitted average neutrino energy
is not overly sensitive to the details of the energyex hange pro esses.

of  transport on the previously introdu ed ba kground models in order to assess the importan e
of dierent pie es of input physi s. In Se . 4 we
ompare the  uxes and spe tra with those of
e and e . We on lude in Se . 5 with a dis ussion
and summary of our ndings.
2. THERMALIZATION DEPTH OF
ENERGY-EXCHANGE PROCESSES
2.1. Simple Pi ture of Spe tra Formation

One of our goals is to assess the relative importan e of dierent neutrino intera tion hannels with the ba kground medium of the SN ore.
As a rst step it is instru tive to study the thermalization depth of various energy-ex hange pro esses. Within the transport sphere, the neutrinos are trapped by elasti s atterings on nu leons,
 N ! N , whi h are by far the most frequent
rea tions between neutrinos and parti les of the
stellar medium. (Unless otherwise noted \neutrinos" always refers to any of ,  ,  or  .) Assuming for the moment that these ollisions are
iso-energeti (no nu leon re oils), it is straightforward to dene for a neutrino of given energy
 the lo ation (\thermalization depth") where it
last ex hanged energy with the medium by a rea tion su h as e ! e . Following Shapiro &
Teukolsky (1983) we dene the opti al depth for
energy ex hange or thermalization by


Z 1 s
1
1
1
0
dr
therm (r) =
+  (r0 ) :
E (r0 ) T (r0 )
E
r
(1)
Here, E is the mean free path (mfp) for the relevant energy-ex hange pro ess and T the transport mfp, i.e. the mfp orresponding to the ross
se tion for momentum ex hange in the  N ! N
rea tion. The quantities therm, E and T are
all understood to depend on the neutrino energy
. The main philosophy of Eq. (1) is that a neutrino trapped by elasti s attering has a han e to
ex hange energy orresponding to its a tual diusive path through the s attering atmosphere (for a
dis ussion, see Suzuki 1990). The thermalization
depth Rtherm is given by
2
(2)
therm (Rtherm ) = ;
3
where Rtherm depends on the neutrino energy .

2.2. Neutron-Star Atmospheres

In order to determine the lo ation of the thermalization depth for dierent pro esses we need to
dene our assumed neutron-star atmospheres. As
a rst example we use a model taken from a full
hydrodynami al simulation. This model is representative for the a retion phase; hen eforth we
will refer to it as the \A retion-Phase Model I"
(Fig. 1). It was provided to us by O. E. B. Messer
and was already used in Raelt (2001) for a more
s hemati study. Based on the Woosley & Weaver
4

Table 1
Chara teristi s of power-law models.

Steep
p
10
q
2.5
q=p
0.25
0 [1014 g m 3 2.0
T0 [MeV
31.66
r0 [km
10

As another self- onsistent example (A retionPhase Model II) we obtained a 150 ms postboun e
model from M. Rampp (personal ommuni ation)
that uses a very similar progenitor (s15s7b2). The
simulation in ludes an approximate general relativisti treatment in spheri al symmetry as des ribed by Rampp & Janka (2002). The three
neutrino avors are transported with all relevant
intera tions ex ept ee pair annihilation to 
10
[1013 g/cm3]

1
0.1
0.01
0.001
0.0001
14
12
10
8
6
4
2

0.1
0.01
0.001

15
10
5

0.5
0.4
0.3

Ye

Ye

20
T [MeV]

T [MeV]

[1013 g/cm3]

15 M progenitor model labeled s15s7b, the Newtonian ollapse simulation was performed with the
SN ode developed by Mezza appa et al. (2001).
The snapshot is taken at 324 ms after boun e when
the sho k is at about 120 km, i.e. the star still a retes matter. In this simulation the traditional
mi rophysi s for  transport was in luded, i.e.
iso-energeti s attering on nu leons, e+e annihilation and e s attering.

Shallow
5
1
0.2
0.2
20.0
10

0.2
0.1
0.0
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Radius [km]

0.40
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Radius [km]

Fig. 1.| A retion-Phase Model I, a SN model

324 ms after boun e from a Newtonian al ulation
(O.E.B. Messer, personal ommuni ation).

Fig. 2.| A retion-Phase Model II, a SN ore at

150 ms postboun e from a general-relativisti simulation. (M. Rampp, personal ommuni ation).
5

 [MeV]

[MeV]

[MeV]

(see also Se . 4.1 and Rampp et al. 2002).

As another set of examples we use two powerlaw proles of the form
 r p
 r q
0
0
 = 0
; T = T0
;
(3)
r
r
with a onstant ele tron fra tion per baryon Ye.
We adjust parameters su h that hi  20{25 MeV
for the emerging neutrinos to obtain model atmospheres in the ballpark of results from protoneutron star evolution al ulations. We dene
a \steep" power-law model, orresponding to the
one used by Raelt (2001), and a \shallow" one;
the hara teristi s are given in Table 1. The shallow model ould be hara teristi of a SN ore
during the a retion phase while the steep model
is more hara teristi for the neutron-star ooling
phase. The onstant ele tron fra tion Ye is another parameter that allows us to investigate the
relative importan e of the leptoni pro esses as a
fun tion of the assumed Ye.
2.3. Thermalization Depth

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

b
p
n
s
urca

20 30 40 50 60 70
Rtherm [km]

We now al ulate the thermalization depth as

a fun tion of the neutrino energy  for several
energy-ex hanging pro esses and the neutron-star
atmospheres des ribed above. We onsider the
neutrino mfp for nu leon bremsstrahlung NN !
NN  , pair annihilation e+e !   and
e e !   , and s attering on harged leptons
 e ! e  . The numeri al implementation of
the rea tion rates is des ribed in Appendix B.
In Figs. 3 and 4 we give the thermalization
depth Rtherm as a fun tion of neutrino energy
 for the two hydrodynami ally self- onsistent
a retion-phase models. From top to bottom the
panels show the results for e, e, and  , respe tively. The step-like urves represent the temperature proles in terms of the mean neutrino energy,
h i = 3:15 T for non-degenerate neutrinos at the
lo al medium temperature; the steps orrespond
to the radial zones of our Monte Carlo simulation.
The other urves represent Rtherm for bremsstrahlung (b), e+e annihilation (p), ee annihilation
(n), and s attering on e (s). In the ase of e and
e we do not in lude bremsstrahlung and e e annihilation. Parti le reation is in this ase largely
dominated by the harged urrent rea tions on
nu leons (ur a).

Fig. 3.| Rtherm as a fun tion of neutrino energy

 for our A retion-Phase Model I. From top to
bottom the panels show the results for e, e, and
 . Energy ex hanging pro esses: bremsstrahlung
(solid line), e+e annihilation (dashed), ee annihilation (dotted), and s attering on e (dashdotted). \Ur a" denotes the harged- urrent rea tion of e and e on nu leons. The steps represent
hi = 3:15 T .
For the power-law models we show Rtherm for 
in Figs. 5 and 6. The dierent panels orrespond
to the indi ated values of the ele tron fra tion Ye.
Note that Ye represents the net ele tron density
per baryon, i.e. the e density minus that of e+ so
that Ye = 0 implies that there is an equal thermal
population of e and e+.
The  absorption rate for the bremsstrahlung pro ess varies approximately
as  1, the  N
2
transport ross se tion as  so that the inverse
mfp for thermalization varies only as 1=2. This
explains why Rtherm for bremsstrahlung is indeed
quite independent of . Therefore, bremsstrahlung
6

 [MeV]

b
p
n
s
urca

[MeV]

[MeV]

[MeV]
[MeV]
[MeV]

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Rtherm [km]

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Ye = 0.00

Ye = 0.05

Ye = 0.50

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Rtherm [km]

Fig. 4.| Same as Fig. 3 for the A retion-Phase

Model II.

Fig. 5.| Rtherm for  in the steep power-law

model with the indi ated values of Ye. This gure
orresponds to the bottom panel of Fig. 3.

alone allows one to spe ify a rather well-dened

energy sphere. The other pro esses depend mu h
more sensitively on  so that a mean energy sphere
is mu h less well dened.
Both ele tron s attering and the leptoni pair
pro esses are so inee tive at low energies that
true lo al thermodynami equilibrium (LTE) an
not be established even for astonishingly deep lo ations. Bremsstrahlung easily \plugs" this lowenergy hole so that one an indeed expe t LTE for
all relevant neutrino energies below a ertain radius. For higher energies, the leptoni pro esses
dominate and shift the energy sphere to larger
radii than bremsstrahlung alone. The relative importan e of the various pro esses depends on the
density and temperature proles as well as Ye.
In order to assess the role of the various pro esses for the overall spe tra formation one needs
to spe ify some typi al neutrino energy. One possibility would be hi for neutrinos in LTE. An-

other possibility is the mean energy of the neutrino ux, in parti ular the mean energy of those
neutrinos whi h a tually leave the star. For our
power-law atmospheres this is always around 20{
25 MeV. Therefore, the pro ess with the largest
Rtherm in this energy band is the one most relevant for determining the emerging neutrino spe trum. It appears that at least for steep proles
pair annihilation is never ru ial on e bremsstrahlung is in luded, i.e. we would guess that in luding
pair annihilation will not ae t the emerging neutrino spe tra. The relevan e of ele tron s attering
is far more di ult to guess. On the one hand
it surely is more important than re oil in nu leon
s atterings for some of the relevant energies, on
the other hand we are not able to dene an energy
sphere for nu leon re oils be ause this pro ess is
dierent from the others in that neutrinos transfer
only a small fra tion of their energy per s atter7

 [MeV]
[MeV]
[MeV]

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

dire tion. If the neutrinos are in LTE without a

hemi al potential one has

Ye = 0.00


( ) = 1 + exp(
=T )

f ; 

and therefore

7
hi = 180

4

Ye = 0.05

15 20 25
Rtherm [km]

 3:1514 T :

(6)

One an dene an ee tive neutrino temperature

for non-equilibrium distributions by inverting this
relationship.
It is often useful to extra t spe tral hara teristi s for those neutrinos whi h are a tually owing
by removing the isotropi part of the distribution.
Spe i ally, we dene the average ux energy by
R1
R +1
d  f (; )
0 d 
:
(7)
hi ux = R 1 R +11
0 d
1 d  f (; )
Far away from the star all neutrinos will ow essentially in the radial dire tion, implying that the
angular distribution be omes a delta-fun tion in
the forward dire tion so that hi ux = hi. However, in the trapping regions the two averages are
very dierent be ause the distribution fun tion is
dominated by its isotropi term.
To hara terize the spe trum beyond the mean
energy one an onsider a series of moments hni
(Janka & Hillebrandt 1989a); we usually limit ourselves to n = 1 and 2. Note that a Fermi-Dira
distribution at zero hemi al potential yields
h2 i = 486000 35  1:3029 : (8)
a
hi2
49 8
For a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution this quantity would be 4/3. Following Raelt (2001) we
further dene the \pin hing parameter"
1 h2i ;
p
(9)

Ye = 0.50

10

(5)

30

Fig. 6.| Same as Fig. 5 for the shallow power-law

model.
ing. Therefore, it is not straightforward to assess
the relevan e of ele tron s attering ompared with
nu leon re oils on the basis of the various thermalization spheres alone.
3. MONTE CARLO STUDY OF MUON
NEUTRINO TRANSPORT
3.1. Spe tral Chara teristi s

In order to hara terize the neutrino spe tra

and uxes emerging from a neutron star we need
to introdu e some simple and intuitive parameters.
One is the mean energy
R1
R +1
d f (; )
0 d 
;
(4)
hi = R 1 R +11
0 d
1 d f (; )
where f (; ) is the neutrino distribution fun tion
with  the energy and  the osine of the angle
between the neutrino momentum and the radial

hi

a  2

where p = 1 signies that the spe trum is thermal

up to its se ond moment, while p < 1 signies
a pin hed spe trum (high-energy tail suppressed),
p > 1 an anti-pin hed spe trum (high-energy tail
enhan ed). An analogous denition applies to the
pin hing parameter p ux of the ux spe trum by
repla ing h
i with h
i ux.
8

This hara teristi spe tral energy is useful for estimating the energy transfer from neutrinos to the
stellar medium in rea tions with ross se tions
proportional to 2. For thermal neutrinos with
vanishing hemi al potential we nd
r
hirms = 930
441  T  4:5622 T : (13)
With Eq. (6) this orresponds to hi  0:691hirms.

We will nd that when all energy-transfer

me hanisms are in luded, the ux spe tra are
always pin hed. In this ase it makes sense to
approximate the spe trum as a nominal FermiDira distribution hara terized by a temperature
T and a degenera y parameter  a ording to
2
f () =
(10)
1 + exp  

T

</T>

(Janka & Hillebrandt 1989a). In Fig. 7 we show

h=T i and p as a fun tion of . Up to se ond order,
expansions are
h=T i  3:1514 + 0:1250  + 0:0429 2
p  1 0:0174  0:0046  2 :
(11)
These expansions are also shown in Fig. 7 as
dashed lines.

3.2. Monte Carlo Set Up

We have run our Monte Carlo ode, that is

des ribed in Appendix A, for the stellar ba kground models introdu ed in Se . 2.2 and for different ombinations of energy- hanging neutrino
rea tions. Our main interest is to assess the impa t of the s attering atmosphere on the ux and
spe trum formation. Therefore, it is su ient to
simulate the neutrino transport above some radius
where we have to spe ify a boundary ondition.
We always use a bla kbody boundary ondition
at the bottom of the atmosphere, i.e. we assume
neutrinos to be in LTE at the lo al temperature
and the appropriate hemi al potential; for  and
 the latter is taken to vanish. As a onsequen e
of this boundary ondition, the luminosity emerging at the surfa e is generated within the omputational domain and al ulated by our Monte Carlo
transport. A small ux a ross the inner boundary
develops be ause of the negative gradients of temperature and density in the atmosphere, but its
magnitude depends on the radial resolution of the
neutron-star atmosphere and will not in general
orrespond to the physi al diusive ux. But as
long as the ux is small ompared to the luminosity at the surfa e, the emerging neutrino spe tra
will not depend on the lower boundary ondition.
Usually it is su ient to pla e the inner grid radius
deeper in the star than the thermalization depth
of the dominant pair pro ess.
The shallow energy dependen e of the thermalization depth of the nu leon bremsstrahlung implies that whenever we in lude this pro ess it is
not di ult to hoose a reasonable lo ation for the
lower boundary. Taking the latter too deep in the
star is very CPU-expensive as one spends most of
the simulation for al ulating frequent s atterings
of neutrinos that are essentially in LTE.
We always in lude N s attering as the main
opa ity sour e. For energy ex hange, we swit h on

1.02
1
0.98
0.96
0.94
0.92
0.9
4.00
3.80
3.60
3.40
3.20
3.00
-2

-1

Fig. 7.| Mean energy and pin hing parameter

as a fun tion of the degenera y parameter for a
Fermi-Dira distribution. As dashed lines we show
the expansions given in Eq. (11).
In some publi ations the root-mean-square energy hirms is given instead of the average energy.
The denition orresponding to Eq. (4) is
v
s
u R 1 R +1
3
u
d 1 d 3 f (; )
0
= hhii :
hirms = t R 1 R +1
0 d 1 d  f (; )
(12)
9

or o bremsstrahlung (b),+ nu leon re oil (r), s attering on ele trons (s), e e pair annihilation (p),
and ee annihilation (n). We never in lude inelasti nu leon s attering  NN ! NN as this pro ess is never important relative to re oil (Raelt
2001). Likewise, we ignore s attering on e and e
whi h is always unimportant if  e is in luded
(Buras et al. 2002). We also negle t  or 
s attering even though su h pro esses may have
a larger rate than some of the in luded leptoni
pro esses. Pro esses of this type do not ex hange
energy between the neutrinos and the ba kground
medium. They are therefore not expe ted to ae t
the emerging uxes and should also have a minor
ee t on the emitted spe tra.

luminosity by a sizable amount without ae ting mu h the spe tral shape. This suggests that
bremsstrahlung is important as a sour e for 
pairs, but that the spe trum is then shaped by the
energy-ex hange in s attering with e. In the next
row we swit h o e s attering (bp) so that no
energy is ex hanged ex ept by pair-produ ing pro esses. The spe tral energy indeed in reases signi antly. However, the biggest energy-ex hange
ee t in the s attering regime is nu leon re oil.
In the next two rows we in lude re oil (brp) and
then additionally e s attering (brsp), both lowering the spe tral energies and also the luminosities.
The pi ture of all relevant pro esses is ompleted by adding ee pair annihilation (brspn),
whi h is similar to e+e pair annihilation, but a
fa tor of 2{3 more important (Buras et al. 2002).
The luminosity is again in reased, an ee t whi h
is understood in terms of our bla kbody pi ture
for the number and energy spheres. In the lower
panel of Fig. 3 we see that Rtherm moves to larger
radii on e \n" is swit hed on, the radiating surfa e
of the \bla kbody" in reases and more pairs are
emitted. For both \p" and \n" Rtherm is strongly
energy dependent and therefore it is impossible to
dene a sharp thermalization radius.
To study the relative importan e of the dierent pair pro esses, we swit h o the leptoni ones
(row \brs") and ompare this to only the leptoni
pro esses (row \rspn"). In this stellar model both
types ontribute signi antly. Comparing then
\brsp" with \brsn" shows that among the leptoni
pro esses \n" is learly more important than \p".
The last row \brsnpn" in ludes in addition to
all other pro esses s attering on e and e. It was
already shown by Buras et al. (2002) that this pro ess is about half as important as s attering on e
and its in uen e on the neutrino ux and spe tra
is negligible. We show this ase for ompleteness
but do not in lude s attering on e and e for any
of our further models.

3.3. Importan e of Dierent Pro esses

3.3.1.

A retion-Phase Model I

Our rst goal is to assess the relative importan e of dierent energy-ex hange pro esses for
the  transport. As a rst example we begin with
our A retion-Phase Model I. The results from our
numeri al runs are summarized in Table 2 where
for ea h run we give hi ux, h2 i ux, and the pin hing parameter p ux for the emerging ux spe trum, the temperature and degenera y parameter of an ee tive Fermi-Dira spe trum produ ing the same rst two energy moments, and the
luminosity.
The rst row ontains the muon neutrino ux
hara teristi s of the original Boltzmann transport al ulation by Messer. To make a onne tion to these results we ran our ode with the
same input physi s, i.e.  e s attering (s) and
e+e annihilation (p). There remain small dieren es between the original spe tral hara teristi s
and ours. These an be aused by dieren es in
the implementation of the neutrino pro esses, by
the limited number of energy and angular bins in
the Boltzmann solver, the oarser resolution of the
radial grid in our Monte Carlo runs, and by our
simple bla kbody lower boundary ondition. We
interpret the rst two rows of Table 2 as agreeing
su iently well with ea h other that a detailed
understanding of the dieren es is not warranted.
Hen eforth we will only dis uss dierential ee ts
within our own implementation.
In the next row (bsp) we in lude nu leon bremsstrahlung whi h has the ee t of in reasing the

3.3.2.

Steep Power Law

As another example we study the steep powerlaw model dened in Eq. (3) and Table 1. This
model is supposed to represent the outer layers
of a late-time proto-neutron star but without being hydrostati ally self- onsistent. It onne ts dire tly with Raelt (2001), where the same pro-

10

Table 2
Monte Carlo results for A retion-Phase Model I.

Energy ex hange hi ux h2i ux p ux T

original run
17.5 388. 0.97 5.2
{ { s p { 16.6 362. 1.01 5.3
b { s p { 16.3 351. 1.02 5.4
b { { p { 17.8 419. 1.02 5.9
b r { p { 15.1 285. 0.96 4.3
b r s p { 14.2 255. 0.98 4.2
b r s p n 14.4 264. 0.97 4.3
{ { s p n 16.9 369. 0.99 5.3
b r s { { 14.0 251. 0.99 4.3
b r s { n 14.4 263. 0.97 4.3
{ r s p { 14.5 265. 0.97 4.3
{ r s p n 14.7 269. 0.96 4.2
b r sn p n 14.3 260. 0.97 4.3

1.1
0.3
2.2
1.9
1.6
1.1
1.2
0.4
0.6
1.2
1.2
1.7
1.2

L

14.4
15.8
19.1
20.1
18.6
14.8
17.6
20.2
13.1
17.0
13.0
16.8
17.9

Note.|For energy ex hange, \b" refers to bremsstrahlung, \r"

to re oil, \s" to s attering on ele trons and positrons, \p" to e+e
annihilation, \n" to ee annihilation, and \sn" to s attering on
both e and e, e. We give hi ux and T in MeV, h2 i ux in
MeV2, and L in 1051 erg s 1.

11

le was used in a plane parallel setup, studying

bremsstrahlung and nu leon re oil. The results of
our runs are displayed in Table 3 and agree very
ni ely with those obtained by Raelt (2001), orresponding to our ases \b" and \br".
For investigating the importan e of leptoni
pro esses, we run our ode with a variety of neutrino intera tions and in addition assume a onstant ele tron fra tion Ye throughout the whole
stellar atmosphere. This assumption is somewhat
arti ial, but gives us the opportunity to study
extreme ases in a ontrolled way. In the relevant
region Ye = 0:5 yields the highest possible ele tron
density. In addition we study the ele tron fra tion
being one order of magnitude smaller, Ye = 0:05,
and nally the extreme ase with an equal number
of ele trons and positrons, Ye = 0.
The rst leptoni pro ess we onsider is e+e
pair annihilation. Comparing the rows \bp" with
the row \b" shows a negligible ee t on the spe trum, but a rise in luminosity. In reasing Ye
brings the luminosity almost ba k to the \b"
ase, be ause the ele tron degenera y rises and the
positron density de reases so that the pair pro ess
be omes less important.
Adding s attering on e for es the transported
neutrinos to stay loser to the medium temperature, i.e. redu es their mean energy. Of ourse, the
s attering rate in reases with the number of ele trons and positrons, i.e. for higher Ye we get lower
spe tral energies. For the luminosity the situation
is more ompli ated. Sin e the neutrino ux energies de rease when we swit h on e s attering
we would expe t a lower luminosity. However, the
opa ity of the medium to neutrinos is strongly energy dependent and low energy neutrinos an es ape more easily than high-energy ones, in reasing
the number ux. On balan e, the \bsp" luminosities are larger ompared to the \bp" ones.
To ompare the s attering on e with the one
on nu leons, we turn o \s" again and instead
swit h on re oil (r). Qualitatively, the energy ex hange is very dierent from the earlier ase. In
the s attering on e a neutrino an ex hange a
large amount of energy, while for s attering on
nu leons the energy ex hange is small. But sin e
neutrino-nu leon s attering is the dominant sour e
of opa ity that keeps the neutrinos inside the star,
the s atterings are very frequent. This leads to
a stronger suppression in the high-energy tail of

the neutrino spe trum and therefore to a visibly smaller mean ux energy and lower ee tive
spe tral temperature, but higher ee tive degenera y. Many nu leon s atterings, however, are
needed to downgrade the high-energy neutrinos
(dierent from e s attering). Therefore neutrinos stay longer at high energies and experien e a
larger opa ity and a larger amount of ba ks attering. This suppresses the neutrino ux signi antly.
In the runs in luding both s attering rea tions
(brsp), we nd a mixture of the ee ts of e and
nu leon s atterings and an enhan ed redu tion of
the mean ux energy.
Finally, adding the neutrino pair pro ess yields
almost no hange in energy and pin hing, but an
in reased luminosity as expe ted from the analogous ase in Se . 3.3.1. Although this prole is
rather steep, leptoni pair pro esses are still important (Fig. 5).
In order to estimate the sensitivity to the exa t
treatment of nu leon bremsstrahlung we have performed one run with the bremsstrahlung rate arti ially enhan ed by a fa tor of 3, and one where
it was de reased by a fa tor 0.3. All other pro esses were in luded. The emerging uxes and
spe tra indeed do not depend sensitively on the
exa t strength of bremsstrahlung.
3.3.3.

Shallow power law

For the shallow power law almost the same dis ussion as for the steep ase applies. As we an
already infer from Fig. 6, leptoni pro esses are
more important. This leads to a mu h higher in rease of the neutrino ux on e \p" or \n" are
in luded, and to stronger spe tral pin hing when
e+e annihilation is swit hed on. S attering on
e downgrades the transported neutrino ux by a
larger amount.
3.4. Summary

We nd that the  spe tra are reasonably well

des ribed by the simple pi ture of a bla kbody
sphere determined by the thermalization depth of
the nu leoni bremsstrahlung pro ess, the \lter
ee t" of the s attering atmosphere, and energy
transfers by nu leon re oils. This is also true for
the  ux in ase of steep neutron-star atmospheres. For more shallow atmospheres pair anni-

12

Table 3
Monte Carlo results for the steep power-law model.

Energy ex hange
b
{ { {
b
r { {
b
{ { p
b
{ { p
b
{ { p
b
{ s p
b
{ s p
b
{ s p
b
r { p
b
r s p
b
r s p
b
r s p
b
r s p
b3 r s p
b
r s p
b0:3 r s p
b
r s p

Ye

{
{
{
{
{
{
{
{
{
{
{
{
n
n
n
n
n

|
|
0
0.05
0.5
0
0.05
0.5
0.5
0
0.05
0.5
0
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.5

hi ux h2 i ux

25.8
19.5
25.4
25.6
25.5
24.2
23.8
21.3
20.0
20.3
20.3
19.6
20.7
20.3
20.6
20.7
19.8

962.
487.
890.
908.
917.
787.
753.
591.
507.
518.
518.
488.
535.
522.
530.
534.
499.

p ux

1.11
0.98
1.06
1.06
1.08
1.03
1.02
1.00
0.98
0.97
0.97
0.98
0.96
0.97
0.96
0.96
0.97

|
6.0
|
|
|
|
|
6.8
6.0
5.9
5.9
5.9
5.8
6.0
5.9
5.8
5.9

L

|
0.7
|
|
|
|
|
0.3
1.0
1.4
1.4
1.1
1.8
1.3
1.7
1.8
1.2

21.0
14.5
23.8
23.2
21.6
24.5
24.5
23.1
16.8
19.7
19.5
18.7
23.9
24.2
23.8
23.4
21.4

Table 4
Monte Carlo results for the shallow power-law model.

Energy ex hange
b { { { {
b r { { {
b { { p {
b { { p {
b { { p {
b { s p {
b { s p {
b { s p {
b r { p {
b r s p {
b r s p {
b r s p {
b r s p n
b r s p n
b r s p n

Ye

|
|
0
0.05
0.5
0
0.05
0.5
0.5
0
0.05
0.5
0
0.05
0.5

hi ux h2 i ux

27.7
20.1
27.7
27.9
28.3
25.5
25.4
23.5
22.5
22.3
22.2
21.7
22.2
22.4
21.8

13

1120.
521.
974.
990.
1019.
830.
815.
706.
624.
612.
609.
585.
608.
615.
587.

p ux

1.12
0.99
0.98
0.98
0.98
0.98
0.97
0.98
0.95
0.95
0.95
0.95
0.94
0.94
0.95

|
6.3
8.3
8.3
8.5
7.6
7.5
7.1
6.1
6.1
6.1
6.1
6.0
6.1
6.1

|
0.4
1.0
1.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.0
2.2
2.1
2.1
1.9
2.2
2.3
1.9

L

20.3
13.4
43.1
43.3
38.3
46.2
46.3
44.8
33.1
39.6
39.1
39.2
54.7
54.9
51.3

hilation (e+ e and ee), however, yields a large

ontribution to the emitted  ux and e s attering redu es the mean ux energy signi antly. It is
therefore important for state-of-the art transport
al ulations to in lude these leptoni pro esses.
The traditional pro ess e+e !  is subdominant ompared to ee !   annihilation as
previously found by Buras et al. (2002). The relative importan e of the various rea tions depends
on the stellar prole.
Neutrinos emitted from a bla kbody surfa e
and ltered by a s attering atmosphere without re oils and leptoni pro esses have an antipin hed spe trum (Raelt 2001). However, after all energy-ex hanging rea tions have been in luded we nd that the spe tra are always pin hed.
When des ribed by ee tive Fermi-Dira distributions, the nominal degenera y parameter  is typi ally in the range 1{2, depending on the prole
and ele tron on entration.

Our Monte Carlo runs of this prole establish

the same pi ture for the same input physi s. Although our mean energies are slightly oset to
lower values for all avors relative to the orginial
run, our energies relative to ea h other are he i :
he i : h i = 0:84 : 1 : 1:19 and thus very similar.
However, on e we in lude all energy ex hanging
pro esses we nd 0:84 : 1 : 1:02 instead. Therefore, h i no longer ex eeds he i by mu h. The
luminosity of  is about half that of e or e whi h
are approximately equal, in rough agreement with
the original results. Even though the additional
pro esses lower the mean energy of  they yield
a more than 10% higher  luminosity, mainly due
to ee annihilation.
As another example of an a reting protoneutron star we use the A retion-Phase Model II.
The neutrino intera tions in luded in this model
were nu leon bremsstrahlung, s attering on e,
and e+e annihilation. Nu leon orrelations, effe tive mass, and re oil were taken into a ount,
following Burrows & Sawyer (1998, 1999), as
well as weak magnetism ee ts (Horowitz 2002)
and quen hing of gA at high densities (Carter &
Prakash 2002). All these improvements to the
traditional mi rophysi s ae t mainly  and to
some degree also e. Weak magnetism terms de rease the nu leon s attering ross se tions for 
more strongly than they modify  s atterings. In
this hydrodynami al al ulation, however,  and
 were treated identi ally by using the average
of the orresponding rea tion ross se tions. The
ee ts of weak magnetism on the transport of 
and  are therefore not in luded to very high
a ura y. Note, moreover, that the original data
ome from a general relativisti hydrodynami al
simulation with the solution of the Boltzmann
equation for neutrino transport al ulated in the
omoving frame of the stellar uid. Therefore the
neutrino results are ae ted by gravitational redshift and, depending on where they are measured,
may also be blueshifted by Doppler ee ts due to
the a retion ow to the nas ent neutron star.
Our Monte Carlo simulation in ontrast was
performed on a stati ba kground without general
relativisti orre tions. It in ludes bremsstrahlung, re oil, e+e pair annihilation, s attering on
e, and ee annihilation, i.e. our mi rophysi s is
similar but not identi al with that used in the original run. As an outer radius we took 100 km; all

4. COMPARING DIFFERENT
FLAVORS
4.1. Monte Carlo Study

The new energy-ex hange hannels studied in

the previous se tion lower the average  energies.
In order to ompare the  uxes and spe tra with
those of e and e we perform a new series of runs
where we in lude the full set of relevant mi rophysi s for  and also simulate the transport of
e and e .
The mi rophysi s for the intera tions of e and
e is the same as in Janka & Hillebrandt (1989a,b),
i.e. harged- urrent rea tions of e with nu leons,
iso-energeti s attering on nu leons, s attering on
e, and e+e pair annihilation. In prin iple one
should also in lude nu leon bremsstrahlung and
the ee t of nu leon re oils for the transport of e
and e, but their ee ts will be minimal. Therefore, we preferred to leave the original working
ode unmodied for these avors.
In the rst three rows of Table 5 we give the
spe tral hara teristi s for the A retion-Phase
Model I from the original simulation of Messer.
The usual hierar hy of average neutrino energies
is found, i.e. he i : he i : h i = 0:86 : 1 : 1:20.
The luminosities are essentially equal between e
and e while , ,  , and  ea h provide about
half of the e luminosity.
14

Table 5
Comparing Monte Carlo results for different flavors.

Model and Flavor

Ye

A retion-Phase Model I

Original
 , 
e
e
Our runs
 ,  (\sp")
 ,  (all pro esses)
e
e

A retion-Phase Model II

Original
 , 
e
e
Our runs
 , 
e
e

Steep Power Law p = 10

= 2:5
 , 
e
e
 , 
e
e
q = 3:0
 , 
e
e
q = 3:5
 , 
e
q

h2 i ux
hi ux hhi ux

e i ux

p ux

L

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

17.5
14.6
12.5
16.6
14.3
14.0
11.8

1.20
1
0.86
1.19
1.02
1
0.84

388.
253.
190.
362.
260.
237.
175.

0.97
0.91
0.93
1.01
0.97
0.93
0.97

5.2
3.5
3.2
5.3
4.3
3.6
3.4

1.1
3.4
2.8
0.3
1.2
2.7
1.4

14.4
29.2
30.8
15.8
17.9
31.7
31.9

|
|
|
|
|
|

17.2
15.8
12.9
15.7
15.4
13.0

1.09
1
0.82
1.02
1
0.84

380.
300.
207.
317.
283.
207.

0.98
0.92
0.96
0.98
0.92
0.95

5.2
4.0
3.7
4.8
3.8
3.6

0.8
3.0
1.7
0.8
3.2
2.1

32.4
68.1
65.6
27.8
73.5
73.9

20.4
18.5
12.7
20.4
17.9
13.4
17.7
15.5
10.5
15.8
13.0
9.4
22.0
19.3
14.7

1.10
1
0.69
1.14
1
0.75
1.14
1
0.68
1.22
1
0.72
1.14
1
0.76

525.
413.
198.
521.
383.
218.
393.
289.
132.
310.
207.
103.
596.
440.
262.

0.96
0.92
0.94
0.97
0.92
0.93
0.96
0.93
0.92
0.95
0.94
0.90
0.94
0.91
0.93

5.9
4.6
3.4
5.9
4.4
3.4
5.0
4.0
2.6
4.4
3.5
2.1
6.0
4.5
3.8

1.5
3.0
2.4
1.5
3.1
2.9
1.8
2.8
3.0
2.1
2.3
3.9
2.2
3.7
2.7

23.5
23.5
12.8
23.3
11.7
24.4
12.7
8.8
6.6
7.9
4.3
4.1
53.9
85.7
56.5

0.15
0.15
0.15
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.07
0.07
e
0.07
Shallow Power Law p = 5, q = 1
 , 
0.3
e
0.3
e
0.3

We give hi ux and T in MeV, h2 i ux in MeV2, L in 1051 erg s 1.

Note.|

15

ing results from the original runs. For the transport of  our inner boundary is Rin = 16 km,
while for e and e we use Rin = 24 km. For e
and e the harged- urrent pro esses (ur a) keep
these neutrinos in LTE up to larger radii than pair
pro esses in the ase of  . With our hoi e of Rin
the neutrinos are in LTE within the innermost radial zones.
The results are similar to the A retion-Phase
Model I. The luminosities are not equipartitioned
but instead follow roughly Le  Le  2 L .
The ratios of mean energies are he i : he i :
h i = 0:82 : 1 : 1:09 in the original run and
0:84 : 1 : 1:02 in our run.
In summary, both a retion-phase models agree
reasonably well in the he i : he i ratio for all runs.
Moreover, using traditional input physi s one nds
something like he i : h i = 1 : 1:20. Depending
on the implementation of the new input physi s
and depending on the model one nds results between he i : h i = 1 : 1:02 and 1 : 1:09. The
higher ratio in Rampp's simulation ould be due
to the in lusion of weak magnetism whi h tends
to raise h i more than he i.
In order to estimate the orresponding results
for later stages of the proto-neutron star evolution
we employ our steep power-law model. We vary
the power q of the temperature prole within a
reasonable range so that q=p = 0:25{0.35, with q
and p dened in Eq. (3). Ye is xed by demanding
roughly equal number uxes for e and e be ause
a few se onds after boun e deleptonization should
be essentially omplete. The uxes of these neutrinos depend very sensitively on Ye so that this
onstraint is only rea hed to within about 30%
without tuning Ye to three de imal pla es. However, the mean energies are rather insensitive to
the exa t value of Ye. This is illustrated by the
steep power-law model with q = 2:5 where we
show results for Ye = 0:15 and 0.20. The number uxes of e and e dier by less than 30% for
Ye = 0:15, but dier by a fa tor of 3 for Ye = 0:2.
At the same time, the average spe tral energies
barely hange.
The ratios of mean energies are not very dierent from those of the a retion-phase models. Of
ourse, the absolute ux energies have no physi al
meaning be ause we adjusted the stellar prole in
order to obtain realisti values. For the luminosities we nd Le < L , dierent from the a retion

[MeV]

[MeV]

[MeV]

ux parameters are measured at this radius be ause farther out Doppler ee ts of the original
model would make it di ult to ompare the results. Keeping in mind that we use very dierent numeri al approa hes and somewhat dierent
input physi s, the agreement in parti ular for e
and e is remarkably good. This agreement shows
on e more that our Monte Carlo approa h likely
aptures at least the dierential ee ts of the new
mi rophysi s in a satisfa tory manner.
In Fig. 8 we ompare our al ulations for the
A retion-Phase Model II with those of the original simulation. The step-like urve again represents the mean energy of neutrinos in LTE for zero
hemi al potential. The smooth solid line is the
mean energy hi from our runs, the dotted (lower)
line gives hi ux. The rosses are the orrespond45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10

flux

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90100
Radius [km]

Fig. 8.| Comparison of the A retion-Phase

Model II al ulations. Continuous lines show our
Monte Carlo runs while rosses represent the original simulation by Rampp. The steps orrespond
to hi = 3:15 T .
16

phase. The steep power law implies that the radiating surfa es are similar for all avors so that
it is not surprising that the avor with the largest
energies also produ es the largest luminosity.
We nd that h i always ex eeds he i by a
small amount, the exa t value depending on the
stellar model. During the a retion phase the energies seem to be almost identi al, later they may
dier by up to 20%. We have not found a model
where the energies dier by the large amounts
whi h are sometimes assumed in the literature. At
late times when Ye is small the mi rophysi s governing e transport is loser to that for  than
at early times. Therefore, one expe ts that at late
times the behavior of e is more similar to  than
at early times. We do not see any argument for
expe ting an extreme hierar hy of energies at late
times for self- onsistent stellar models.
We never nd exa t equipartition of the avordependent luminosities. Depending on the stellar
prole the uxes an mutually dier by up to a
fa tor of 2 in either dire tion.

group who nd robust explosions by virtue of the

neutron-nger onve tion phenomenon. Neutrino
transport is treated in the hydrodynami al models
with a multigroup ux-limited diusion s heme.
Mayle, Wilson, & S hramm (1987) gave detailed
results for their SN simulation of a 25 M star.
For half a se ond after boun e they obtained a
somewhat os illatory behavior of the neutrino luminosities. After the prompt peak of the ele tron
neutrino luminosity, they got Le  Le  2 L 
50{130  1051 erg s 1. After about one se ond the
values stabilize. This al ulation did not produ e
the \standard" hierar hy of energies. However,
there is learly a tenden y that e behave more
similar to  at late times.
The most re ent published Livermore simulation is a 20 M star (Totani et al. 1998). It
shows an astonishing degree of luminosity equipartition from the a retion phase througout the early
Kelvin-Helmholtz ooling phase. About two se onds after boun e the  ux falls o more slowly
than the other avors. In Table 6 we show representative results for an early and a late time. The
mean energies and their ratios are onsistent with
what we would have expe ted on the basis of our
study.
With a dierent numeri al ode, Bruenn (1987)
found for a 25 M progenitor qualitatively dierent results for luminosities and energies. At about
0.5 s after boun e the luminosities and energies
be ame stable at the values given in Table 6. This
simulation is an example for an extreme hierar hy
of mean energies.
In Burrows (1988) all luminosities are said to
be equal. In addition it is stated that for the rst
5 se onds h i  24 MeV and the relation to the
other avors is he i : he i : h i = 0:9 : 1 : 1:8.
Detailed results are only given for e, so we are not
able to add this referen e to our table. The large
variety of models investigated by Burrows (1988)
and the detailed results for e go beyond the s ope
of our brief des ription. In a later paper Myra &
Burrows (1990) studied a 13 M progenitor model
and found the extreme hierar hy of energies shown
in our table.
With the original version of our ode Janka &
Hillebrandt (1989b) performed their analyses for a
20 M progenitor from a ore- ollapse al ulation
by Hillebrandt (1987). Of ourse, like our present
study, these were Monte Carlo simulations on a

4.2. Previous Literature

There is a large re ent body of literature quoted

in our introdu tion where the ee t of avor os illations on SN neutrino spe tra and uxes is studied. Many of these papers assumed that h i is
mu h larger than he i and that the luminosities
between all avors were exa tly equipartitioned.
Our ndings here are almost orthogonal to this
per eption. Where does it ome from?
To the best of our knowledge, the mi rophysi s
employed for  transport is roughly the same in
all published simulations. It in ludes iso-energeti
s attering on nu leons, e+e annihilation and
 e s attering. Of ourse, the transport method
and the numeri al implementation of the neutrino
pro esses dier in the odes of dierent groups.
The new rea tions and nu leon re oil lower h i
and modify the luminosities, but not by su h a
large amount as to explain a ompletely dierent
paradigm. Therefore, we have inspe ted the previous literature and olle t a representative sample
of pertinent results in Table 6. Note that the simulations dis ussed below did not in all ases use
the same stellar models and equations of state for
the dense matter in the supernova ore.
We begin with the simulations of the Livermore
17

Table 6
Flavor dependent flux hara teristi s from the literature.

Mayle et al. (1987)

Totani et al. (1998)
Bruenn (1987)
Myra & Burrows (1990)
Janka & Hillebrandt (1989b)
Suzuki (1990)
Suzuki (1991)
Suzuki (1993)
A retion-Phase Model I (original)
A retion-Phase Model I (our run)
A retion-Phase Model II (original)
A retion-Phase Model II (our run)

h i
L
Le Le
tpb he i he i h i
he i
1.0
12 24 22 0:50 : 1 : 0:92 20 20 20
0.3
12 15 19 0:80 : 1 : 1:26 20 20 20
10
11 20 25 0:55 : 1 : 1:25 0.5 0.5 1
0.5
10 12 25 0:83 : 1 : 2:08 3
5 16
0.13 11 13 24 0:85 : 1 : 1:85 30 30 16
0.3
8 14 16 0:57 : 1 : 1:14 30 220 65
1
9.5 13 15 0:73 : 1 : 1:15 4
4 3
20
8 10
9 0:80 : 1 : 0:90 0.3 0.3 0.07
1
9.5 13 15 0:73 : 1 : 1:15 3
3 3
15
8
9 9.5 0:89 : 1 : 1:06 0.4 0.4 0.3
1
9 12 13 0:75 : 1 : 1:08 3
3 3
15
7
8
8 0:88 : 1 : 1:00 0.3 0.3 0.3
0.32 13 15 18 0:86 : 1 : 1:20 31 29 14
0.32 12 14 14 0:84 : 1 : 1:02 32 32 18
0.15 13 16 17 0:82 : 1 : 1:09 66 68 32
0.15 13 15 16 0:84 : 1 : 1:02 74 74 28

The following lines show hirms instead of hi

Mezza appa et al. (2001)

Liebendorfer et al. (2001)

0.5
0.5

16
19

19
21

24 0:84 : 1 : 1:26 25
24 0:90 : 1 : 1:14 30

We give the time post boun e (tpb) in s, hi in MeV, and L in 1051 erg s 1.

Note.|

18

25
30

8
10

xed ba kground model, not self- onsistent simulations. Taking into a ount the dierent mi rophysi s the mean energies are onsistent with our
present work. The mean energies of e were somewhat on the low side relative to e and the e luminosity was overestimated. Both an be understood
by the fa t that the stellar ba kground ontained
an overly large abundan e of neutrons, be ause
the model resulted from a post-boun e al ulation
whi h only in luded ele tron neutrino transport.
Suzuki (1990) studied models with initial temperature and density proles typi al of protoneutron stars at the beginning of the KelvinHelmholtz ooling phase about half a se ond after
boun e. He used the relatively sti nu lear equation of state developed by Hillebrandt & Wol
(1985). In our table we show the results of the
model C12. From Suzuki (1991) we took the
model labeled C20 whi h in ludes bremsstrahlung. The model C48 from Suzuki (1993) in ludes multiple-s attering suppression of bremsstrahlung. Suzuki's models are the only ones from
the previous literature whi h go beyond the traditional mi rophysi s for  transport. It is reassuring that his ratios of mean energies ome losest
to the ones we nd.
Over the past few years, rst results from Boltzmann solvers oupled with hydrodynami al simulations have be ome available, notably the unpublished ones that we used as our A retionPhase Models I and II. For onvenien e we in lude
them in Table 6. Moreover, we in lude two simulations similar to the A retion-Phase Model I,
one by Mezza appa et al. (2001) and the other
by Liebendorfer et al. (2001). These latter papers
show rms energies instead of mean energies. Re alling that the former tend to be about 45% larger
than the latter these results are entirely onsistent
with our A retion-Phase Models. Moreover, the
ratios of hirms tend to exaggerate the spread between the avor-dependent mean energies be ause
of dierent amounts of spe tral pin hing, i.e. different ee tive degenera y parameters. To illustrate this point we take the rst two rows from
Table 5 as an example. The ratio of mean energies for Fermi-Dira spe tra with temperatures
T1 = 5:2 and T2 = 3:5 and degenera y parameters
1 = 1:1 and 2 = 3:4 is h1 i=h2 i = 1:19, whereas
the ratio of rms energies equals 1.30.
To summarize, the frequently assumed exa t

equipartition of the emitted energy among all avors appears only in some simulations of the Livermore group. We note that the avor-dependent
luminosities tend to be quite sensitive to the detailed atmospheri stru ture and hemi al omposition. On the other hand, the often-assumed extreme hierar hy of mean energies was only found
in the early simulations of Bruenn (1987) and of
Myra & Burrows (1990), possibly a onsequen e
of the neutron-star equation of state used in these
al ulations.
If we ignore results whi h appear to be \outliers", the pi ture emerging from Table 6 is quite
onsistent with our own ndings. For the luminosities, typi ally Le  Le and a fa tor of 2{3
between this and L in either dire tion, depending on the evolutionary phase. For the mean
energies we read typi al ratios in the range of
he i : he i : h i = 0:8{0:9 : 1 : 1:1{1.3. The
more re ent simulations involving a Boltzmann
solvers show a onsistent behavior and will in future provide reliable information about neutrino
uxes and spe tra.
5. DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY

We have studied the formation of neutrino spe tra and uxes in a SN ore. Using a Monte Carlo
ode for neutrino transport, we varied the mi ros opi input physi s as well as the underlying
stati proto-neutron star atmosphere. We used
two ba kground models from self- onsistent hydrodynami al simulations, and several power-law
models with varying power-law indi es for the density and temperature and dierent values for the
ele tron fra tion Ye, taken to be onstant.
The  transport opa ity is dominated by
neutral- urrent s attering on nu leons. In addition, there are number- hanging pro esses (nu leon bremsstrahlung, leptoni pair annihilation)
and energy- hanging pro esses (nu leon re oil,
 e s attering). The  spe tra and uxes are
roughly a ounted for if one in ludes one signifi ant hannel of pair produ tion and one for energy ex hange in addition to N s attering. For
example, the traditional set of mi rophysi s (isoenergeti  N s attering, e+e annihilation, and
 e s attering) yields omparable spe tra and
uxes to a al ulation where pairs are produ ed by
nu leon bremsstrahlung and energy is ex hanged
19

by nu leon re oil. The overall result is quite robust against the detailed hoi e of mi rophysi s.
However, in state-of-the-art simulations where
one aims at a pre ision better than some 10{20%
for the uxes and spe tral energies, one needs
to in lude bremsstrahlung, leptoni pair annihilation, neutrino-ele tron s attering, and energy
transfer in neutrino-nu leon
ollisions. Interestingly, the traditional e+e annihilation pro ess is
always mu h less important than ee annihilation, a point that we previously raised with our
ollaborators (Buras et al. 2002). None of the rea tions studied here an be negle ted ex ept perhaps the traditional e+e annihilation pro ess and
 e and  e s attering.
The existing treatments of the nu lear-physi s
aspe ts of the NN ! NN  bremsstrahlung pro ess are rather s hemati . We nd, however, that
the  uxes and spe tra do not depend sensitively on the exa t strength of the bremsstrahlung
rate. Therefore, while a more adequate treatment
of bremsstrahlung remains desirable, the nal results are unlikely to be mu h ae ted.
In luding all pro esses works in the dire tion of
making the uxes and spe tra of  more similar
to those of e ompared to a al ulation with the
traditional set of input physi s. During the a retion phase the neutron-star atmosphere is relatively expanded, i.e. the density and temperature gradients are relatively shallow. Our investigation suggests that during this phase h i is
only slightly larger than he i, perhaps by a few
per ent or 10% at most. This result agrees with
the rst hydrodynami al simulation in luding all
of the relevant mi rophysi s ex ept ee annihilation (A retion-Phase Model II) provided to us by
M. Rampp. For the luminosities of the dierent
neutrino spe ies one nds Le  Le  2 L . The
smallness of L is not surprising be ause the ee tive radiating surfa e is mu h smaller than for e.
During the Kelvin-Helmholtz ooling phase the
neutron-star atmosphere will be more ompa t,
the density and temperature gradients will be
steeper. Therefore, the radiating surfa es for all
spe ies will be ome more similar. In this situation L may well be ome larger than Le . However, the relative luminosities depend sensitively
on the ele tron on entration. Therefore, without
a self- onsistent hydrostati late-time model it is
di ult to laim this luminosity ross-over with

onden e.
The ratio of the spe tral energies is most sensitive to the temperature gradient relative to the
density gradient. In our power-law models we used
 / r p and T / r q . Varying q=p between
0.25 and 0.35 we nd that he i : h i varies between 1 : 1:10 and 1 : 1:22. Noting that the upper range for q=p seems unrealisti ally large we
on lude that even at late times the spe tral differen es should be small; 20% sounds like a safe
upper limit. We are looking forward to this predi tion being he ked in a full-s ale self- onsistent
neutron-star evolution model with a Boltzmann
solver.
The statements in the previous literature fall
into two lasses. One group of workers, using the
traditional set of mi rophysi s, found spe tral differen es between e and  on the 25% level, a
range whi h largely agrees with our ndings in
view of the dierent mi rophysi s. Other papers
laim ratios as large as he i : h i = 1 : 1:8 or
even ex eeding 1 : 2. We have no explanation for
these latter results. At least within the framework
of our simple power-law models we do not understand whi h parameter ould be reasonably adjusted to rea h su h extreme spe tral dieren es.
In a high-statisti s neutrino observation of a future gala ti SN one may well be able to dis over
signatures for avor os illations. However, when
studying these questions one has to allow for the
possibility of very small spe tral dieren es, and
onversely, for the possibility of large ux dieren es. This situation is orthogonal to what often
has been assumed in papers studying possible os illation signatures.
We have always assumed that  and  behave identi ally. However, weak-magnetism ee ts
render the  N and N s attering ross se tions
somewhat dierent (see, e.g., Horowitz 2002). To
study the resulting dieren es of the  and 
uxes and spe tra requires a modied setup of our
Monte Carlo ode be ause  and  have to be
transported simultaneously. The dierent transport oe ients will ause a  hemi al potential
to build up. While we expe t the dieren es of
uxes and spe tra to be small, we intend to investigate this issue quantitatively in the near future.

20

Rin neutrinos are inje ted isotropi ally a ording

to LTE. While a small net ux a ross the inner
boundary develops, the neutrinos emerging from
the star are generated almost ex lusively within
our omputational domain. If Rin is hosen so
deep that the neutrinos are in LTE, the assumed
boundary ondition for the ux will therefore not
ae t the results.
The stellar medium is assumed to be in thermodynami equilibrium with nu lei being ompletely disintegrated into free nu leons. Based on
, T , and Ye we al ulate all the required thermodynami al quantities, notably the number densities, hemi al potentials, and temperatures of protons, neutrons, ele trons, positrons, and the relevant neutrinos. The hemi al potentials for 
and  are taken to be zero. Next we ompute
the intera tion rates in ea h radial zone for all in luded pro esses. In the simulations dis ussed in
the present work, fermion phase-spa e blo king is
al ulated from the neutrino equilibrium distributions instead of the omputed phase-spa e distributions. This simpli ation saves a lot of CPU
time be ause otherwise the rates have to be reevaluated whenever the distribution of neutrinos
has hanged after a transport time step. The approximation is justied be ause phase-spa e blo king is most important in regions where neutrinos
frequently intera t and thus are lose to LTE.
At the start of a Monte Carlo run, 800,000 test
neutrinos are randomly distributed in the model
a ording to the lo al equilibrium distributions.
Ea h test neutrino represents a ertain number
of real neutrinos. In this initial setup the number of real neutrinos is determined by LTE. Then
transport is started. The time step is xed at

t = 10 7s; re all that the intera tion rates do
not hange. At the beginning of ea h step neutrino reation takes pla e. The number of test
parti les that an be reated is given by the number of neutrinos that were lost through the inner
and outer boundaries plus those absorbed by the
medium. Based on
t, the produ tion rates, and
the fa t that the inner boundary radiates neutrinos, we al ulate the number of neutrinos that are
produ ed in one time step and distribute them
among the available test neutrinos by attributing
suitable weight fa tors. The sample parti les are
reated within the medium or inje ted at the inner
boundary in appropriate proportions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Institute for Nu lear Theory

(University of Washington, Seattle) for its hospitality during a visit when this work was begun.
In Muni h, this work was partly supported by the
Deuts he Fors hungsgemeins haft under grant No.
SFB 375 and by the ESF network Neutrino Astrophysi s. We thank Bronson Messer and Markus
Rampp for providing unpublished stellar proles
from self- onsistent ollapse simulations.
A. MONTE CARLO CODE

Our Monte Carlo ode is based on that developed by Janka (1987) where a detailed des ription of the numeri al aspe ts an be found. The
ode was rst applied to al ulations of neutrino
transport in supernovae by Janka & Hillebrandt
(1989a,b) and Janka (1991). It uses Monte Carlo
methods to follow the individual destinies of sample neutrinos (parti le \pa kages" with suitably
attributed weights to represent a number of real
neutrinos) on their way through the star from the
moment of reation or in ow to their absorption
or es ape through the inner or outer boundaries.
The onsidered stellar ba kground is assumed to
be spheri ally symmetri and stati , and the sample neutrinos are hara terized by their weight fa tors and by ontinuous values of energy, radial position and dire tion of motion, represented by the
osine of the angle relative to the radial dire tion.
The rates of neutrino intera tions with parti les of
the stellar medium an be evaluated by taking into
a ount Fermion blo king ee ts a ording to the
lo al phase-spa e distributions of neutrinos (Janka
& Hillebrandt 1989b).
As ba kground stellar models we use the ones
des ribed in Se . 2.2. They are dened by radial proles of the density , temperature T , and
ele tron fra tion Ye, i.e. the number of ele trons
per baryon. The al ulations span the range between some inner radius Rin and outer radius Rout.
These bound the omputational domain whi h is
divided into 30 equally spa ed radial zones. In
ea h zone , T , and Ye are taken to be onstant.
Rin is hosen at su h high density and temperature that the neutrinos are in LTE in at least
the rst radial zone. Rout is pla ed in a region
where the neutrinos essentially stream freely. At
21

During a time step the path of ea h test parti le through the stellar atmosphere is followed by
Monte Carlo sampling. With random numbers we
de ide whether it ies freely or intera ts. If it intera ts it an s atter or it an be absorbed; in
this ase we turn to the next parti le. For s attering we determine the new momentum and position
and ontinue with the pro ess until the time step
is used up. Parti les leaving through the lower or
upper boundaries are eliminated from the transport.
After a ertain number of time steps (typi ally
around 15,000) the neutrino distribution rea hes
a stationary state and further hanges o ur only
due to statisti al u tuations. At that stage we
start averaging the output quantities over the next
500 time steps.

re oiling nu leons the stru ture fun tion be omes

( )=

Sre oil !; k

exp
! T

k

!k

(B3)

4T !k

with !k = k2=2m.
Multiplying Eq. (B1) with the density of nu leons, ignoring phase spa e blo king of the essentially nondegenerate nu leons, yields the dierential rates that an then be integrated for obtaining the required energy and angular dierential
rates. In the ase of re oil the numeri al integrations are rather tri ky be ause Eq. (B1) is strongly
forward peaked. In our ode we employ the \reje tion method" for obtaining the integrated rates
(Press 1992).
B.2. Bremsstrahlung

We also follow Raelt (2001). The mfp for

the absorption of a  by inverse bremsstrahlung
NN  ! NN is given by
2 2
1
brems
= CA2GF nB 21
Z
3
 2d(2k)3 f () 24   S (+) :
(B4)
The over-barred quantities belong to the  that
is absorbed together with the primary . The
o upation numbers are taken to follow an equilibrium distribution with zero hemi al potential,
and j CA j = 1:26=2 as in the s attering ase.

B. NEUTRINO PROCESSES
B.1. Neutrino-Nu leon S attering

The rates for the  N rea tions are al ulated

following Raelt (2001). For a neutrino with initial energy 1 and nal energy 2, the dierential
ross se tion is given by
2 (3 os )
CA
S (!; k )
d
=
G2F 22
d2 d os 
2
2 (B1)
with ! = 1 2, k the modulus of the momentum
transfer to the medium, and  the s attering angle.
We do not distinguish between protons and neutrons. Sin e for nonrelativisti nu leons the s attering ross se tion is proportional
to CV2 + 3CA2 ,
1
the ve tor urrent (CV = 2 for neutrons and
2
1
2 2 sin W for protons) is small ompared to the
axial omponent, where we use jCA j = 1:26=2. Negle ting the ve tor part simplies the al ulations
signi antly and ertainly has a smaller ee t on
the s attering rates than other un ertainties, for
example the in-medium value of the oupling onstants themselves.
In all of our runs without re oil the stru ture
fun tion is given by
Sno re oil(!; k ) = 2 (! ) :
(B2)
This orresponds to innitely heavy nu leons and
represents the traditional approximation in all previous simulations. For the more realisti ase of

B.3. Pair Annihilation

We now turn to e+e !   and ee !  .

The matrix elements for both pro esses are identi al up to oupling onstants while the phase-spa e
integrations only dier by the hemi al potentials.
After summing over all spins and negle ting the
rest masses, the squared matrix element is
h
X
jMj2 = 8 G2F (CV + CA )2 u2
spins

+ (CV CA)2 t2 (B5)

with the Mandelstam variables t = 2k1
k3 and
u = 2k1
k4 . The momenta are assigned to the
22

parti les as indi ated in Fig. 9. The weak intera tion onstants for e+e annihilation are
1 + 2 sin2 W ; CA = 1 (B6)
CV =
2
2
while for ee annihilation they are
1
CA = C V = :
(B7)
2

For our numeri al implementation we normally

use Fermi-Dira statisti s, but in order to redu e omputation time one of the remaining three
phase-spa e integrations is approximated by the
analyti expressions given in Takahashi, El Eid, &
Hillebrandt (1978). This also requires simplifying
the blo king fa tors. With e = e+  0 we an
approximate the positron o upation number by
a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. For e=T > 2
this holds to very good a ura y. The greatest deviation is at e=T = 0 and yields blo king fa tors
too low by about 10%. However, e and e are
always degenerate in the relevant regions.

e, e
k1

k3

k2

k4

e+,

B.4. S attering on Ele trons and Ele tron

Neutrinos

The matrix elements for these rea tions are just

the rossed versions of the leptoni pair pro esses,
h
X
jMj2 = 8 G2F (CV + CA )2 s2

Fig. 9.| Pair annihilation pro esses produ ing

  pairs.
For the intera tion rates we have to perform
the phase-spa e integrations, using blo king fa tors for the nal states and o upation numbers
for initial-state parti les (Hannestad & Madsen
1995, Yueh & Bu hler 1976). Three integrations
remain that an not be arried out analyti ally.
Mu- and tau-leptons are almost absent in protoneutron star atmospheres so that the hemi al potentials of the orresponding neutrinos an be set
to zero. For the e+e rea tions the lo al value of
e = e+  e an be obtained from , T , and
Ye by inverting
ne (e ) ne+ (e )
= Ye ;
(B8)

spins

+ (CV CA )2u2 (B10)

with the same weak intera tion oe ients of
Eqs. (B6) or (B7) for s attering on e or on e,
respe tively. For s = 2k1
k2 and u = 2k1
k4 the
momenta are assigned to the parti les a ording
to Fig. 10. Crossing the matrix element Eq. (B10)
again by inter hanging u $ t, we obtain s attering on e+ or e. This is also true for s attering of
 on e or e ; s attering of  on e+ or e brings
us ba k to Eq. (B10). For al ulating the rates in
our ode we apply the same approximations as in
the previous se tion.

nbaryons

where ne (e) and ne+ (e) are Fermi integrals.

For e and e the hemi al potential is obtained
by the relation
(B9)
e = e = e + p n
with the hemi al potentials p and n of protons
and neutrons, respe tively.
For ee annihilation we make use of the fa t
that the energy sphere of  lies always deeper
inside the star than the e and e spheres (see
Fig. 3). Thus e and e are in LTE and are part
of the medium as far as the transport of  is on erned. This approximation breaks down at larger
radii where this pro ess is unimportant anyway.

e, e

k1

k3

k2

k4

e, e

Fig. 10.| Leptoni s attering pro esses.

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