UC San Diego

We investigate matter-enhanced Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) active-sterile neutrino conversion in the νe νs channel in the collapse of the iron core of a presupernova star. For values of sterile neutrino rest mass ms and vacuum mixing angle θ (specifically, 0.5keV5×10-12) which include those required for viable sterile neutrino dark matter, our one-zone in-fall phase collapse calculations show a significant reduction in core lepton fraction. This would result in a smaller homologous core and therefore a smaller initial shock energy, disfavoring successful shock reheating and the prospects for an explosion. However, these calculations also suggest that the MSW resonance energy can exhibit a minimum located between the center and surface of the core. In turn, this suggests a post-core-bounce mechanism to enhance neutrino transport and neutrino luminosities at the core surface and thereby augment shock reheating: (1) scattering-induced or coherent MSW νe→νs conversion occurs deep in the core, at the first MSW resonance, where νe energies are large (∼150MeV); (2) the high energy νs stream outward at near light speed; (3) they deposit their energy when they encounter the second MSW resonance νs→νe just below the proto-neutron star surface. © 2006 The American Physical Society.