Cerenkov radiation of longitudinal photons by neutrinos

Abstract

In a relativistic plasma neutrino can emit plasmons by the Cerenkov process which is kinematically allowed for a range of frequencies for which refractive index is greater than one. We have calculated the rate of energy emission by this process. We compute the energy deposited in a stalled supernova shock wave by the Cerenkov process and find that it is much smaller than the Bethe-Wilson mechanism.

Comments: 11 pages, 2 figures available on request