Supernova-Neutrino Studies with ${}^{100}$Mo

Abstract

We show that supernova neutrinos can be studied by observing their charged-current interactions with ${}^{100}$Mo, which has strong spin-isospin giant resonances. Information about both the effective temperature of the electron neutrino sphere and the oscillation into electron neutrinos of other flavors can be extracted from the electron (inverse ${\hat{I}}^2$) spectrum. We use measured hadronic charge-exchange spectra and the Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation to calculate the charged-current response of ${}^{100}$Mo to electron neutrinos from supernovae, with and without the assumption of oscillations. A scaled up version of the MOON detector for ${\hat{I}}^2{\hat{I}}^2$ and solar-neutrino studies could potentially be useful for spectroscopic studies of supernova neutrinos as well.

7 pages, 1 figure