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Okawa, Hirotada

Publications and source records attributed to Okawa, Hirotada.

Systematic Local Simulations of Fast Neutrino Flavor Conversions with Scattering Effects

We investigate the dynamics of fast neutrino flavor conversions (FFCs) in the one-dimensional (1D) and zero-dimensional (0D) models, in which spatial advection is considered and ignored, respectively. In this study, we employ snapshots obtained by our self-consistent, realistic Boltzmann-neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamics simulations. We show that the FFC growth rate is considerably larger in the 1D model than in the 0D model, as expected from the previous linear analysis results. We find that the momentum space dimension does not significantly influence the neutrino transition probability in 1D models. On the other hand, in the 0D model without collisions, the FFC depends on the momentum space, and the azimuthal angle dependence breaks the periodicity of the FFC. Our study demonstrates that collisional instability can lead to further flavor conversions on a long timescale in 1D models after the asymptotic state of FFC has been reached. Such an effect should be taken into consideration when the fast and collisional flavor instabilities coexist.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

The W4 method: A new multi-dimensional root-finding scheme for nonlinear systems of equations

We propose a new class of method for solving nonlinear systems of equations, which, among other things, has four nice features: (i) it is inspired by the mathematical property of damped oscillators, (ii) it can be regarded as a simple extension to the Newton-Raphson (NR) method, (iii) it has the same local convergence as the NR method does, (iv) it has a significantly wider convergence region or the global convergence than that of the NR method. In this article, we present the evidence of these properties, applying our new method to some examples and comparing it with the NR method.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Fast collective neutrino oscillations inside the neutrino sphere in core-collapse supernovae

Neutrinos are believed to have a key role in the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae as they carry most of the energy released by the gravitational collapse of a massive star. If their flavor is converted fast inside the neutrino sphere, the supernova explosion may be influenced. This paper is reporting the results of the extended work of our previous paper. Here, we perform a thorough survey of the electron lepton number (ELN) crossing in one of our self-consistent, realistic Boltzmann simulations in two spatial dimensions under axisymmetry for the existence of the crossings between $ν_e$ and $\bar{ν}_e$ angular distributions, or the ELN crossing. We report for the first time the positive detections deep inside the core of the massive star in the vicinity of neutrino sphere at $\textit{r}$ ≈ 16 – 21 km . We find that low values of the electron fraction $Y_e$ produced by convective motions together with the appearance of light elements are critically important to give rise to the ELN crossing by enhancing the chemical potential difference between proton and neutron, and hence by mitigating the Fermi-degeneracy of $ν_e$. Since the region of positive detection are sustained and, in fact, expanding with time, it may have an impact on the explosion of core-collapse supernovae, observational neutrino astronomy, and nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗