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Neutrino spin-flip effects in collapsing stars

We study the spin-flavor transitions of neutrinos in the magnetic fields of a collapsing star. For the neutrino mass squared difference (10^{-10} - 10) eV^2 the transitions take place in almost isotopically neutral region of the star, where the effective matter density is suppressed up to 3 - 4 orders of magnitude. This suppression is shown to increase the sensitivity of the neutrino bursts studies to the magnetic moment of neutrino by 1.5 - 2 orders of magnitude, and for realistic magnetic field the observable effects may exist for (2 - 3)10^{-14} Bohr magneton. In the isotopically neutral region the jumps of the effective potential exist which influence the probabilities of transitions. The experimental signatures of the spin-flavor transitions are discussed. In particular, in the case of direct mass hierarchy, the spin-flip effects result in a variety of modifications of the electron antineutrino spectrum. Taking this into account, we estimated the upper bounds on the magnetic moment from the SN1987A data. In the isotopically neutral region the effects of possible twist of the magnetic field on the way of neutrinos can be important, inducing distortion of the neutrino energy spectra and further increasing the sensitivity. However, if the total rotation angle is restricted the absolute change of probabilities is small.