What might we learn from a future supernova neutrino signal?

We apply Bayesian methods to study the sensitivity to neutrino masses of a Galactic supernova neutrino signal. Our procedure makes use of the full statistics of events and is remarkably independent of astrophysical assumptions. Present detectors can reach a sensitivity down to $m_\nu \sim 1$ eV. Future megaton detectors can yield up to a factor of two improvement; however, they will not be competitive with the next generation of tritium $\beta$-decay and neutrinoless double $...

The neutrino burst from a core-collapse supernova can provide information about the star explosion mechanism and the mechanisms of proto neutron star cooling but also about the intrinsic properties of the neutrino such as flavor oscillations. One important question is to understand to which extent can the supernova and the neutrino physics be decoupled in the observation of a single supernova. The capabilities of present and future large underground neutrino detectors to yiel...

A core-collapse supernova releases the vast majority of the gravitational binding energy of its compact remnant in the form of neutrinos over an interval of a few tens of seconds. In the event of a core-collapse supernova within our galaxy, multiple current and future neutrino detectors would see a large burst in activity. Neutrinos escape a supernova hours before light does, so any prompt information about the supernova's direction that can be inferred via the neutrino signa...

One of the few remaining unknowns in the standard three-flavor neutrino oscillation paradigm is the ordering of neutrino masses. In this work we propose a novel method for determining neutrino mass ordering using the time information on early supernova neutrino events. In a core-collapse supernova, neutrinos are produced earlier than antineutrinos and, depending on the mass ordering which affects the adiabatic flavor evolution, may cause earlier observable signals in $\nu_e$ ...

While existing detectors would see a burst of many neutrinos from a Milky Way supernova, the supernova rate is only a few per century. As an alternative, we propose the detection of ~ 1 neutrino per supernova from galaxies within 10 Mpc, in which there were at least 9 core-collapse supernovae since 2002. With a future 1-Mton scale detector, this could be a faster method for measuring the supernova neutrino spectrum, which is essential for calibrating numerical models and pred...

The next-generation water Cherenkov Hyper-Kamiokande detector will be able to detect thousands of neutrino events from a galactic Supernova explosion via Inverse Beta Decay processes followed by neutron capture on Gadolinium. This superb statistics provides a unique window to set bounds on neutrino properties, as its mass and lifetime. We shall explore the capabilities of such a future detector, constraining the former two properties via the time delay and the flux suppressio...

A future galactic SN can be located several hours before the optical explosion through the MeV-neutrino burst, exploiting the directionality of $\nu$-$e$-scattering in a water Cherenkov detector such as Super-Kamiokande. We study the statistical efficiency of different methods for extracting the SN direction and identify a simple approach that is nearly optimal, yet independent of the exact SN neutrino spectra. We use this method to quantify the increase in the pointing accur...

A nearby supernova will carry an unprecedented wealth of information about astrophysics, nuclear physics, and particle physics. Because supernova are fundamentally neutrino driven phenomenon, our knowledge about neutrinos -- particles that remain quite elusive -- will increase dramatically with such a detection. One of the biggest open questions in particle physics is related to the masses of neutrinos. Here we show how a galactic supernova provides information about the mass...

Core-collapse supernovae constitute a unique laboratory for particle physics and astrophysics. They are powerful neutrino sources of all flavors, emitting essentially all the gravitational binding energy through neutrinos, at the end of their life. I will highlight how crucial is the observation of the next core-collapse supernova and of the diffuse supernova neutrino background, whose discovery might be imminent.

Twenty years after SN 1987A, the vast international programme of experimental neutrino physics and neutrino astronomy suggests that large detectors will operate for a long time. It is realistic that a high-statistics neutrino signal from a galactic SN will be observed. I review some of the generic lessons from such an observation where neutrinos largely play the role of astrophysical messengers. In principle, the signal also holds valuable information about neutrino mixing pa...