We show that a self-interacting neutrino gas can spontaneously acquire a nonstationary pulsating component in its flavor content, with a frequency that can exactly cancel the “multiangle” refractive effects of dense matter. This can then enable homogeneous and inhomogeneous flavor conversion instabilities to exist even at large neutrino and matter densities, where the system would have been stable if the evolution were strictly stationary. Large flavor conversions, especially close to a supernova core, are possible via this novel mechanism. This may have important consequences for the explosion dynamics, nucleosynthesis, as well as for neutrino observations of supernovae.

• Received 17 September 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.125030