Spin flavor oscillation of neutrinos in rotating gravitational fields and their effects on pulsar kicks

The origin of high velocities of pulsars is studied by considering the spin-flip conversion of neutrinos propagating in a gravitational field of a protoneutron star. For a rotating gravitational source (such as pulsars) with angular velocity , one finds that the spin connections (entering in the Dirac equation written in curved space time) induce an additional contribution to neutrino energy which is proportional to w × p, with p the neutrino momentum. Such a coupling (spin-gravity coupling) can be responsible of pulsar kicks being the asymmetry of the neutrino emissi...