UC San Diego

Flavor changing neutral current interactions are predicted in some extensions of the Standard Model. We discuss a process by which a neutrino can change flavor by scattering with a quark. We show how the stellar collapse environment is sensitive to neutrino flavor changing scattering on heavy nuclei. In particular, when this interaction is included in the stellar collapse model, the dynamics of the core's evolution and outcome of collapse are drastically changed. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.