Neutral current induced neutrino oscillations in a supernova

Abstract

Neutral currents induced matter oscillations of electroweak-active (anti-)neutrinos to sterile neutrinos can explain the observed motion of pulsars. In contrast to a recently proposed explanation of the pulsar birth velocities based on the electron to tau (muon) neutrino oscillations [hep-ph/9606428], the heaviest neutrino (either active or sterile) would have to have mass of order several keV.

Comments: 6 pages, latex, postscript file is also available at ftp://dept.physics.upenn.edu/pub/Kusenko/UPR729T.ps