Nuclear structure and neutrino-nucleus reactions at supernova energies

Abstract

Supernova-(anti-)neutrino–nucleus scattering is discussed with reference to neutral-current (NC) and charged-current (CC) processes in heavy stable nuclei. The Donnelly-Walecka method with the associated multipole expansion of the nucleonic current has been adopted as the basic framework in deriving the neutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections. The needed nuclear wave functions are computed by using the quasiparticle random-phase approximation (QRPA) for the even-even target nuclei in the NC processes and the proton-neutron QRPA (pnQRPA) has been used to compute the CC processes for the mentioned nuclei. The wave functions of the stable odd-mass target nuclei have been obtained by the use of the QRPA-based microscopic quasiparticle-phonon model (MQPM), applied to both NC and CC processes. The obtained cross sections are folded by the energy distributions of the various (anti-)neutrino flavors in order to access detection rates in Earth-based neutrino telescopes. The stable molybdenum (Mo) nuclei serve as examples of application of the formalism, with a subsequent analysis of the results.