Neutrino kinetics in dense astrophysical plasmas

Starting from the effective potentials describing the interaction of a single neutrino with a background species and the concept of ponderomotive force of neutrinos, we develop a collisionless relativistic kinetic theory for neutrinos coupled with a background medium. This formalism provides the basic tool for the physics of collective neutrino-plasma interactions. Comparison with equivalent kinetic equations derived using the methods of finite-temperature quantum field theory is presented. Astrophysical scenarios in which collective neutrino-plasma interactions can play an important role are discussed.