No Arabic abstract
The legacy of solar neutrinos suggests that large neutrino detectors should be sited underground. However, to instead go underwater bypasses the need to move mountains, allowing much larger water Cherenkov detectors. We show that reaching a detector mass scale of ~5 Megatons, the size of the proposed Deep-TITAND, would permit observations of neutrino mini-bursts from supernovae in nearby galaxies on a roughly yearly basis, and we develop the immediate qualitative and quantitative consequences. Importantly, these mini-bursts would be detected over backgrounds without the need for optical evidence of the supernova, guaranteeing the beginning of time-domain MeV neutrino astronomy. The ability to identify, to the second, every core collapse in the local Universe would allow a continuous death watch of all stars within ~5 Mpc, making practical many previously-impossible tasks in probing rare outcomes and refining coordination of multi-wavelength/multi-particle observations and analysis. These include the abilities to promptly detect otherwise-invisible prompt black hole formation, provide advance warning for supernova shock-breakout searches, define tight time windows for gravitational-wave searches, and identify supernova impostors by the non-detection of neutrinos. Observations of many supernovae, even with low numbers of detected neutrinos, will help answer questions about supernovae that cannot be resolved with a single high-statistics event in the Milky Way.
Hadronic matter undergoes a deconfinement transition to quark matter at high temperature and/or high density. It would be realized in collapsing cores of massive stars. In the framework of MIT bag model, the ambiguities of the interaction are encapsulated in the bag constant. Some progenitor stars that invoke the core collapses explode as supernovae, and other ones become black holes. The fates of core collapses are investigated for various cases. Equations of state including the hadron-quark phase transition are constructed for the cases of the bag constant B=90, 150 and 250 MeV fm^{-3}. To describe the mixed phase, the Gibbs condition is used. Adopting the equations of state with different bag constants, the core collapse simulations are performed for the progenitor models with 15 and 40Msolar. If the bag constant is small as B=90 MeV fm^{-3}, an interval between the bounce and black hole formation is shortened drastically for the model with 40Msolar and the second bounce revives the shock wave leading to explosion for the model with 15Msolar.
Nonspherical mass motions are a generic feature of core-collapse supernovae, and hydrodynamic instabilities play a crucial role for the explosion mechanism. First successful neutrino-driven explosions could be obtained with self-consistent, first-principle simulations in three spatial dimensions (3D). But 3D models tend to be less prone to explosion than corresponding axisymmetric (2D) ones. This has been explained by 3D turbulence leading to energy cascading from large to small spatial scales, inversely to the 2D case, thus disfavoring the growth of buoyant plumes on the largest scales. Unless the inertia to explode simply reflects a lack of sufficient resolution in relevant regions, it suggests that some important aspect may still be missing for robust and sufficiently energetic neutrino-powered explosions. Such deficits could be associated with progenitor properties like rotation, magnetic fields or pre-collapse perturbations, or with microphysics that could lead to an enhancement of neutrino heating behind the shock. 3D simulations have also revealed new phenomena that are not present in 2D, for example spiral modes of the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) and a stunning dipolar lepton-emission self-sustained asymmetry (LESA). Both impose time- and direction-dependent variations on the detectable neutrino signal. The understanding of these effects and of their consequences is still in its infancy.
The time-integrated luminosity and average energy of the neutrino emission spectrum are essential diagnostics of core-collapse supernovae. The SN 1987A electron antineutrino observations by the Kamiokande-II and IMB detectors are only roughly consistent with each other and theory. Using new measurements of the star formation rate history, we reinterpret the Super-Kamiokande upper bound on the electron antineutrino flux from all past supernovae as an excluded region in neutrino emission parameter space. A gadolinium-enhanced Super-Kamiokande should be able to jointly measure these parameters, and a future megaton-scale detector would enable precision studies.
We summarize the impact of sterile neutrino dark matter on core-collapse supernova explosions. We explore various oscillations between electron neutrinos or mixed $mu-tau$ neutrinos and right-handed sterile neutrinos that may occur within a core-collapse supernova. In particular, we consider sterile neutrino masses and mixing angles that are consistent with sterile neutrino dark matter candidates as indicated by recent X-ray flux measurements. We find that the interpretation of the observed 3.5 keV X-ray excess as due to a decaying 7 keV sterile neutrino that comprises 100% of the dark matter would have almost no observable effect on supernova explosions. However, in the more realistic case in which the decaying sterile neutrino comprises only a small fraction of the total dark matter density due to the presence of other sterile neutrino flavors, WIMPs, etc., a larger mixing angle is allowed. In this case a 7 keV sterile neutrino could have a significant impact on core-collapse supernovae. We also consider mixing between $mu-tau$ neutrinos and sterile neutrinos. We find, however, that this mixing does not significantly alter the explosion and has no observable effect on the neutrino luminosities at early times.
The importance of detecting neutrinos from a Milky Way core-collapse supernova is well known. An under-studied phase is proto-neutron star cooling. For SN 1987A, this seemingly began at about 2 s, and is thus probed by only 6 of the 19 events (and only the $bar{ u}_e$ flavor) in the Kamiokande-II and IMB detectors. With the higher statistics expected for present and near-future detectors, it should be possible to measure detailed neutrino signals out to very late times. We present the first comprehensive study of neutrino detection during the proto-neutron star cooling phase, considering a variety of outcomes, using all flavors, and employing detailed detector physics. For our nominal model, the event yields (at 10 kpc) after 10 s -- the approximate duration of the SN 1987A signal -- far exceed the entire SN 1987A yield, with $simeq$250 $bar{ u}_e$ events (to 50 s) in Super-Kamiokande, $simeq$110 $ u_e$ events (to 40 s) in DUNE, and $simeq$10 $ u_mu, u_tau, bar{ u}_mu, bar{ u}_tau$ events (to 20 s) in JUNO. These data would allow unprecedented probes of the proto-neutron star, including the onset of neutrino transparency and hence its transition to a neutron star. If a black hole forms, even at very late times, this can be clearly identified. But will the detectors fulfill their potential for this perhaps once-ever opportunity for an all-flavor, high-statistics detection of a core collapse? Maybe. Further work is urgently needed, especially for DUNE to thoroughly investigate and improve its MeV capabilities.