Paper detail

Neutrino Emissivities from Deuteron-Breakup and Formation in Supernovae

Neutrino emissions from electron/positron capture on the deuteron and the nucleon-nucleon fusion processes in the surface region of a supernova core are studied. These weak processes are evaluated in the standard nuclear physics approach, which consists of one-nucleon and two-nucleon-exchange currents and nuclear wave functions generated by a high precision nucleon-nucleon potential. In addition to the cross sections for these processes involving the deuteron, we present neutrino emissivities due to these processes calculated for typical profiles of core-collapsed supernovae. These novel neutrino emissivities are compared with the standard neutrino emission mechanisms. We find that the neutrino emissivity due to the electron capture on the deuteron is comparable to that on the proton in the deuteron abundant region. The implications of the new channels involving deuterons for the supernova mechanism are discussed.