Supernova pointing by neutrino matter oscillation

A core-collapse supernova will emit a neutrino burst that can be detected on Earth. If the neutrinos travel through the Earth before reaching the detector they oscillate via interaction with Earth's matter, yielding oscillations in the neutrino energy spectrum. The frequency of these oscillations in energy is correlated with the pathlength traveled in the Earth and therefore contains information on the supernova location. For this technique to be useful for pointing, good energy resolution, well-known oscillation parameters and high statistics are required. This method is inferior to pointing with elastic scattering in a water Cherenkov detector but could be applied for scintillator-type detectors which have better energy resolution but weak intrinsic pointing capabilities. By the time a nearby supernova happens the requirements might well be fulfilled, and if no water Cherenkov detector is running at that time it may provide the only possibility to gain directional information. The pointing quality can be further improved by the combination of measurements from multiple detectors and also by taking relative timing into account.

Duke Scholars

Author Kate Scholberg Physics