The Effect of the Fast-Flavor Instability on Core-Collapse Supernova Models

Abstract

Merging our supernova code F{\sc{ornax}} with the Box3D fast-flavor neutrino oscillation formalism, we explore the effects of fast-flavor conversion (FFC) in state-of-the-art 1D and 2D core-collapse supernova simulations. We find that after a few tens of milliseconds after bounce the FFC emerges just interior to and exterior to the stalled shock wave. It does not obtain in the PNS core nor near the average neutrinosphere radii. Interior to the shock, this results in a temporary change in the net neutrino heating rate of $\sim$10\%, due mostly to a hardening of the $\nu_e$ and $\bar{\nu}_e$ neutrino spectra, despite the decrease in their corresponding neutrino number fluxes. In 1D, the hydrodynamic effects are not large, with increases in the stalled shock radius by of order ten to twenty kilometers that abate within a few hundred milliseconds. In 2D, the hydrodynamic effect of the FFC is a bit more noticeable, resulting in slightly earlier explosions for models for lower-mass progenitors, but also potentially inhibiting explosions for some higher-mass progenitors. Fast-flavor conversion continues to operate at larger radii at later times. The net result is a shift upward in the $\nu_{\mu}$ energy and number luminosities and a shift downward in the same quantities for both the $\nu_e$ and $\bar{\nu}_e$ neutrinos. There seems to be a trend at very large radii and later times towards partial species and spectral equipartition. If this is true, it could be an interesting feature of supernova neutrino detection at later times in underground and under-ice facilities.