Abstract
The phenomenon of neutrino flavor oscillations driven by the mixing of their flavor and mass eigenstates has been confirmed by terrestrial neutrino experiments as well as the detection of solar neutrinos. However, one unique aspect of neutrino oscillations in astrophysical or cosmological environments with dense neutrino media, where collective phenomena are expected to happen, remains elusive. Recent studies in simplified or toy-model systems suggested that collective oscillations may largely affect our understanding of supernova explosions and/or the production of heavy elements. This urges further investigation of this phenomenon with both analytical and advanced numerical modeling. In this talk, I'll first demonstrate the underlying physics with toy models and then discuss the recent developments and the consequences.