Abstract: The outflows from neutrino-cooled black hole accretion disks formed in neutron-star mergers or cores of collapsing stars are expected to be neutron-rich enough to explain a large fraction of elements created by the rapid neutron-capture process, but their precise chemical composition remains elusive. Here, we investigate the role of fast neutrino flavor conversion, motivated by the findings of our post-processing analysis that shows evidence of electron-neutrino lepton-number crossings deep inside the disk, hence suggesting possibly nontrivial effects due to neutrino flavor mixing. We implement a parametric, dynamically self-consistent treatment of fast conversion in time-dependent simulations and examine the impact on the disk and its outflows. By activating the otherwise inefficient, emission of heavy-lepton neutrinos, fast conversions enhance the disk cooling rates and reduce the absorption rates of electron-type neutrinos, causing a reduction of the electron fraction in the disk by 0.03-0.06 and in the ejected material by 0.01-0.03. The rapid neutron-capture process yields are enhanced by typically no more than a factor of two, rendering the overall impact of fast conversions modest. The kilonova is prolonged as a net result of increased lanthanide opacities and enhanced radioactive heating rates. We observe only mild sensitivity to the disk mass, the condition for the onset of flavor conversion, and to the considered cases of flavor mixing. Remarkably, parametric models of flavor mixing that conserve the lepton numbers per family result in an overall smaller impact than models invoking three-flavor equipartition, often assumed in previous works.

Abstract: Using PREM as a reference model for the Earth density distribution we investigate the sensitivity of ORCA detector to deviations of the Earth (i) outer core (OC) density, (ii) inner core (IC) density, (iii) total core density, and (iv) mantle density, from their respective PREM densities. The analysis is performed by studying the effects of the Earth matter on the oscillations of atmospheric nu(mu), nu(e), (nu) over bar (mu) and (nu) over bar (e). We present results which illustrate the dependence of the ORCA sensitivity to the OC, IC, core and mantle densities on the type of systematic uncertainties used in the analysis, on the value of the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle theta(23), on whether the Earth mass constraint is implemented or not, and on the way it is implemented, and on the type – with normal ordering (NO) or inverted ordering (IO) – of the light neutrino mass spectrum. We show, in particular, that in the “most favorable” NO case of implemented Earth mass constraint, “minimal” systematic errors and sin(2) theta(23) = 0.58, ORCA can determine, e.g., the OC (mantle) density at 3 sigma C.L. after 10 years of operation with an uncertainty of (- 18%)/+ 15% (of (- 6%)/+ 8%). In the “most disfavorable” NO case of “conservative” systematic errors and sin(2) theta(23) = 0.42, the uncertainty on OC (mantle) density reads (- 43%)/+ 39% ((- 17%/+ 20%), while for for sin(2) theta(23) = 0.50 and 0.58 it is noticeably smaller: (- 37)%/+ 30% and (- 30%)/+ 24% ((- 13%)/+ 16% and (- 11%/+ 14%)). We find also that the sensitivity of ORCA to the OC, core and mantle densities is significantly worse for IO neutrino mass spectrum.