The steady advance in core-collapse supernova simulations requires a more precise description of neutrino processes in hot and dense matter. In this work, we study the rates of charged-current (CC) weak processes with (anti)muons in supernova matter. At the relativistic mean field level, we derive results for the rates of CC neutrino-nucleon reactions, taking into account full kinematics, weak magnetism and pseudoscalar terms, and $q^2$-dependent nucleon form factors in the hadronic current. In addition to muonic semileptonic processes we also consider purely leptonic processes. In particular, we show that inverse muon decay can dominate the opacities for low energy ${\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\overline{\nu }}_e$ at densities $\gtrsim {10}^{13}\mathrm{g}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$.

• Received 22 June 2020
• Accepted 16 July 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.023037

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society