ON THE FORMATION OF HEAVY NEUTRINO STARS DURING A GRAVITATIONAL PHASE-TRANSITION

In the framework of the Thomas-Fermi model at finite temperature, we s how that a cooling non-degenerate gas of massive neutrinos will, at a certain temperature, undergo a phase transition in which quasi-degener ate supermassive neutrino stars are formed through gravitational colla pse. For neutrinos in the mass range of 10 to 25 keV/c(2), these compa ct dark objects could mimic the role of supermassive black holes that are usually assumed to exist at the centres of galaxies and quasi-stel lar objects.