Numerical simulations of the supernova (SN) neutrino self-induced flavor conversions, associated with the neutrino-neutrino interactions in the deepest stellar regions, have been typically carried out assuming the “bulb model.” In this approximation, neutrinos are taken to be emitted half-isotropically by a common neutrinosphere. In the recent [A. Mirizzi and P. D. Serpico, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 231102 (2012)] we have removed this assumption by introducing flavor-dependent angular distributions for SN neutrinos, as suggested by core-collapse simulations. We have found that in this case a novel multiangle instability in the self-induced flavor transitions can arise. In this work we perform an extensive study of this effect, carrying out a linearized flavor stability analysis for different SN neutrino energy fluxes and angular distributions, in both normal and inverted neutrino mass hierarchy. We confirm that spectra of different $\nu$ species which cross in angular space (where $F_{{\nu }_e}=F_{{\nu }_x}$ and $F_{{\overline{\nu }}_e}=F_{{\overline{\nu }}_x}$) present a significant enhancement of the flavor instability, and a shift of the onset of the flavor conversions at smaller radii with respect to the case of an isotropic neutrino emission. We also illustrate how a qualitative (and sometimes quantitative) understanding of the dynamics of these systems follows from a stability analysis.

• Received 1 August 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.085010