1998/06/08 by J. F. Beacom, P. Vogel · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics #Order (exchange) #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Supernova #astro-ph #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.58.093012
published as Phys. Rev. D 58, 093012 (1998) · 12 pages including 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 1998/06/08 · openalex publication_date 1998/10/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · arxiv updated 2016/08/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Core-collapse supernovae emit of order 1058 neutrinos and antineutrinos of all flavors over several seconds, with average energies of 10--25 MeV. In the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), which begins operation this year, neutrinos and antineutrinos of all flavors can be detected by reactions which break up the deuteron. For a future Galactic supernova at a distance of 10 kpc, several hundred events will be observed in SNO. The \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ and \ensuremathν_\ensuremathτ neutrinos and antineutrinos are of particular interest, as a test of the supernova mechanism. In addition, it is possible to measure or limit their masses by their delay (determined from neutral-current events) relative to the \ensuremathνe neutrinos (determined from charged-current events). Numerical results are presented for such a future supernova as seen in SNO. Under reasonable assumptions, and in the presence of the expected counting statistics, a \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ or \ensuremathν_\ensuremathτ mass down to about 30 eV can be simply and robustly determined. If zero delay is measured, then the mass limit is independent of the distance D. At present, this seems to be the best possibility for direct determination of a \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ or \ensuremathν_\ensuremathτ mass within the cosmologically interesting range. We also show how to separately study the supernova and neutrino physics, and how changes in the assumed supernova parameters would affect the mass sensitivity.