Macroscopic Parity Violation and Supernova Asymmetries

Core collapse supernovae are dominated by weakly interacting neutrinos. This provides a unique opportunity for macroscopic parity violation. We speculate that parity violation in a strong magnetic field can lead to an asymmetry in the explosion and a recoil of the newly formed neutron star. We estimate the size of this asymmetry from neutrino polarized neutron elastic scattering, polarized electron capture and neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering in a (partially) polarized electron gas.