Neutrino propagation in the neutron star with uncertainties from nuclear, hadron, and particle physics

Abstract

Abstract In the present work, we investigate the neutral-current neutrino-nucleon scattering in the nuclear medium using various energy-density functional models such as KIDS (Korea-IBS-Daegu-SKKU) and SLy4, together with the quark-meson coupling model for the nucleon form factors at finite density. The differential cross-section and neutrino mean free path are computed numerically, considering the density-dependent nucleon form factors (DDFF) and neutrino structural properties such as the neutrino magnetic moment (NMM) and its electric charge radius (NCR). It turns out that the DDFF decreases the scattering cross-section, whereas the NCR increases it considerably. The effect of the NMM turns out to be almost negligible. We also observe that the value of the neutron effective mass is of importance in the neutron-star cooling process, indicating that for a neutron effective mass larger than the mass in free space, the neutrino can interact with matter at densities ρ ≳ 1.5ρ0 in a neutron star with radius 13 km.