Pulsar Kicks from Majoron Emission

Physics Letters B 621 (2005) 22–27 www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb Pulsar kicks from majoron emission Yasaman Farzan a, Graciela Gelmini b, Alexander Kusenko b a Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (IPM), P.O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran b Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1547, USA Received 21 May 2005; accepted 18 June 2005 Available online 29 June 2005 Editor: M. Cveticˇ Abstract We show that majoron emission from a hot nascent neutron star can be anisotropic in the presence of a strong magnetic field. If majorons carry a non-negligible fraction of the supernova energy, the resulting recoil velocity of a neutron star can explain the observed velocities of pulsars. 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction While only 1% of the gravitational energy goes into the supernova explosion, a much greater energy Pulsar velocities present a long-standing puzzle [1]. pool is in neutrinos that take away 99% of the ini- The distribution of pulsar velocities is non-Gaussian, tial energy. An anisotropy in the neutrino emission as with an average velocity 250–500 km/s [2,3].As small as a few per cent is sufficient to explain the ob- many as 15% of pulsars appear to have velocities served pulsar velocities. The neutrinos are produced in greater than 1000 km/s [3]. Pulsars are magnetized weak processes whose rates depend on the angle be- rotating neutron stars born in supernova explosions of tween the neutrino momentum and the electron spin. ordinary stars, and so one expects these high velocities Inside a hot neutron star, the electrons are polarized to originate in the supernova explosions. However, a by a strong magnetic field. Hence, the neutrinos can pure hydrodynamical asymmetry does not seem to be be produced with a considerable anisotropy. It was sufficient to account for such high velocities. Accord- suggested that the weak interactions alone could lead ing to advanced 3-dimensional calculations, pulsar ve- to an anisotropic flux of neutrinos which could ex- locities from an asymmetric collapse cannot exceed plain the pulsar kicks [5]. However, this asymmetry is 200 km/s [4]. The origin of pulsar velocities remains quickly erased by scattering of the neutrinos on their a tantalizing puzzle. way out of the neutron star. In fact, one can show that, in an approximate thermal and chemical equilibrium, E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Kusenko). an anisotropy in the production or scattering ampli- 0370-2693/$ – see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2005.06.060 Y. Farzan et al. / Physics Letters B 621 (2005) 22–27 23 tudes cannot generate an anisotropy in the neutrino processes give rise to a majoron flux, which can flux [6]. transfer some energy, EΦ , from the core. Obviously, There are two ways to evade this no-go theorem [6]. EΦ cannot be as high as the total supernova energy, 53 One is to consider an ordinary neutrino outside its neu- Etotal = 1.5–4.5 × 10 erg. This is because neutrinos trinosphere, where it is not in thermal equilibrium. For form supernova 1987A have been observed, and this example, conversions from one neutrino type to an- observation implies that at least a third of Etotal was other between their respective neutrinospheres, in the emitted in neutrinos. Based on this observation, one region where one of them is trapped but the other one can derive strong bounds on the couplings [10,11]: is free-streaming, could explain the pulsar kicks [7]. − − g < 4 × 10 7,g,g < 10 6. (5) However, present constraints on the neutrino masses ee µµ ττ do not allow the resonant neutrino oscillations to take However, the data from SN1987a are not precise place at densities around the neutrinospheres, and so enough to rule out the possibility that EΦ was a non- this mechanism does not work. negligible fraction of Etotal. Let us define Another possibility is that there is a new particle, x ≡ E /E , (6) whose interaction with matter is even weaker than Φ total those of neutrinos. Such a particle could be produced and let us assume that the emission of majorons is out of equilibrium, and the no-go theorem of Ref. [6] anisotropic, with an asymmetry of a few percent. does not apply. It has been proposed that an asym- Then the overall anisotropy is x. If this quantity is of −2 metric emission of sterile neutrinos could explain the the order of 10 , the anisotropic emission will give pulsar kicks [8]. In this Letter we consider a different the neutron star a recoil consistent with the observed mechanism, based on the emission of majorons from a pulsar velocities. We will show that the neutron star’s cooling newly formed neutron star. magnetic field can cause such an asymmetry. Majorons, Φ, are massless pseudo-scalar particles Let us examine whether the majorons are trapped. [9] which, to a good approximation, have interactions Inside a supernova core, the processes Φ → νν and only with neutrinos described by the Lagrangian νΦ →¯ν are kinematically allowed. Indeed, if the couplings are very large (g>10−5), the majorons are Φ L = T + ∗ † ∗ trapped inside the core so they cannot transfer a signif- int gαβ να σ2νβ gαβ νβ σ2να . (1) 2 icant amount of energy to the outside [10]. Thus, the The role of the majoron emission in the supernova bounds from supernova cooling exclude only a small cooling process has been studied extensively [10,11]. window in the coupling constant values. In this Letter, Inside a supernova core neutrinos have an effective po- we will concentrate on the coupling constant values tential given by that saturate the bounds in Eq. (5). For such small values of the couplings, the mean free path of νΦ¯ → ν L =−ν†V ν , (2) eff α αβ β is two orders of magnitude larger than the radius of where Vαβ = diag(Ve,Vµ,Vτ ) and the supernova core [11]. The majoron decay length √ is even larger. As a result, one can assume that the V = 2G n (Y + 2Y − Y /2), (3) e F B e νe n majorons leave the core without undergoing any in- √ teraction or decay. Also as it is discussed in [11],for = = − Vµ Vτ 2GF nB (Yνe Yn/2). (4) the values of coupling satisfying the upper bounds (5), Here, Yi = (ni −¯ni)/nB and nB is the baryon density. the four particle interactions involving majorons, such We note that, for the values of the majoron couplings as Φν → Φν, νν → ΦΦ, etc., are negligible. we consider, the terms in the potential due to the ma- Now let us assume that there is a uniform strong joron exchange [12] are negligible; in other words, magnetic field in the core along the zˆ-direction: B = 2 2 | |ˆ |gαβ | nB Yν/T Ve,Vµ. B z. In the presence of such a magnetic field, the Because of the nonzero effective potential, the dis- medium is polarized [13], and the average spin of electrons is persion relations of neutrinos and antineutrinos in- 1/3 side the core are different, making processes such as eB 3 −2/3 → ¯ → λe=− ne . (7) νν Φ and ν νΦ kinematically possible. These 2 π 4 24 Y. Farzan et al. / Physics Letters B 621 (2005) 22–27 As a result, the effective potential of neutrinos receives Consider two electron neutrinos with momenta a new contribution, δV [13]: =| | p1 p1 (1, sin θ1, 0, cos θ1), √ 3 1 1 δV =− 2GF YenB λe cos θ diag , , , (8) 2 2 2 p2 =|p2|(1, sin θ2 cos φ,sin θ2 sin φ,cos θ2). → where θ is the angle between the neutrino momentum The cross-section of νe(p1)νe(p2) Φ is given by and the direction of the polarization. Since the effec- [11] tive potential of the neutrinos depends on the direction 2 2πgee of their momentum, the rates of the processes νν → Φ σ = (p1 + p2) 4p2p2|v − v | and ν¯ → νΦ will also depend on the direction. The 1 2 1 2 ×| + + | − emission of majorons produced in these three-particle 2Ve δV1 δV2 δ(cos θ3 cos θ0), (9) processes is strongly correlated with the direction of where cos θ3 =p1 ·p2/(|p1||p 2|) and the initial neutrinos [11]. Therefore, the majoron emis- p1 + p2 sion will be anisotropic. cos θ0 = 1 + (2Ve + δV1 + δV2). (10) We stress that in all our discussion we neglect the p1p2 neutrino magnetic moment, which is very small in the Note that δV1 and δV2 depend on the directions of p1 Standard Model with massive neutrinos. The magnetic and p2. Integrating over all possible momenta of the field affects the neutrinos only indirectly, through po- neutrinos, we find that the neutrinos inside a volume larizing the electrons in the medium. If some new dV during time dτ, transfer a momentum to the core physics makes the neutrino magnetic moment non- which can be estimated as √ negligible, it may have implications for the pulsar 7 2 |g |2 kicks [14]. dP = G n λ ee (µ )4 dV dτ. F e e 3 νe (11) The rest of this Letter is organized as follows. In 24 (2π) Section 2, we evaluate the momentum that the process Of course, the process νeνe → Φ speeds up the νeνe → Φ can exert on the neutron star in terms deleptonization process and, therefore, the duration of of the total energy transferred to majorons. In Sec- the neutrino emission becomes shorter.

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