On Pulsar Velocities from Neutrino Oscillations

It has been recently suggested that magnetically affected neutrino oscillations inside a cooling protoneutron star, created in a supernova explosion, could explain the large proper motion of pulsars. We investigate whether this hypothesis is in agreement with the observed properties of pulsars and find that present data disfavor the suggested mechanism. The relevance of our results for other models proposed to understand the origin of pulsar velocities is also discussed.