Obtaining supernova directional information using the neutrino matter oscillation pattern

Abstract

A nearby core collapse supernova will produce a burst of neutrinos in several detectors worldwide. With reasonably high probability, the Earth will shadow the neutrino flux in one or more detectors. In such a case, for allowed oscillation parameter scenarios, the observed neutrino energy spectrum will bear the signature of oscillations in Earth matter. Because the frequency of the oscillations in energy depends on the pathlength traveled by the neutrinos in the Earth, an observed spectrum contains also information about the direction to the supernova. We explore here the possibility of constraining the supernova location using matter oscillation patterns observed in a detector. Good energy resolution (typical of scintillator detectors), well known oscillation parameters, and optimistically large (but conceivable) statistics are required. Pointing by this method can be significantly improved using multiple detectors located around the globe. Although it is not competitive with neutrino-electron elastic scattering-based pointing with water Cherenkov detectors, the technique could still be useful.

11 pages, 25 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Multiple Spectral Splits of Supernova Neutrinos
• Neutrinos from Supernovae as a Trigger for Gravitational Wave Search
• Identifying neutrino mass hierarchy at extremely small theta(13) through Earth matter effects in a supernova signal
• Earth matter effects in supernova neutrinos: Optimal detector locations
• Reconstructing the supernova bounce time with neutrinos in IceCube
• Study of the effect of neutrino oscillations on the supernova neutrino signal in the LVD detector
• Detecting neutrinos from black hole neutron stars mergers
• Physics potential of future supernova neutrino observations
• Neutrino Mixing Discriminates Geo-reactor Models
• Exploiting the directional sensitivity of the Double Chooz near detector

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Supernova Neutrino Detection
• Triangulation Pointing to Core-Collapse Supernovae with Next-Generation Neutrino Detectors
• Revisiting the Triangulation Method for Pointing to Supernova and Failed Supernova with Neutrinos
• Prompt directional detection of galactic supernova by combining large liquid scintillator neutrino detectors
• Exploiting stellar explosion induced by the QCD phase transition in large-scale neutrino detectors
• Earth tomography with supernova neutrinos at future neutrino detectors
• Triangulating Black Hole Forming Stellar Collapses through Neutrinos
• Shedding light on the $\Delta m_{21}^2$ tension with supernova neutrinos