Emission of electron density waves by neutrinos in a dense medium

Abstract

We study the production of electron density waves by neutrinos propagating through a plasma. We treat this process in field theoretically as a Cerenkov emission of phonons (quanta of electron density waves) by neutrinos. We compute the energy transfered to the plasma by the neutrinos and apply it to the shock wave revival problem of supernovae.

Comments: 7 pages, revtex, 2 figures