The MSW effect in a fluctuating matter density

Abstract

We consider the effect on matter-enhanced neutrino flavor transformation of a randomly fluctuating, delta-correlated matter density. The fluctuations will produce a distribution of neutrino survival probabilities. We find the mean and variance of the distribution for the case of solar neutrinos, and discuss the possibility of placing a limit on solar density fluctuations using neutrino data.

Comments: 20 LaTeX pages plus 24 Postscript figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. D; also available at http://nucth.physics.wisc.edu/preprints/mad-nt-96-01.tar.gz