Pre-Supernova Neutrinos in Large Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments [CL]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09283


The next Galactic core-collapse supernova (SN) is a highly anticipated observational target for neutrino telescopes. However, even prior to collapse, massive dying stars shine copiously in ‘pre-supernova’ (pre-SN) neutrinos, which can potentially act as efficient SN warning alarms and provide novel information about the very last stages of stellar evolution. We explore the sensitivity to pre-SN neutrinos of large scale direct dark matter detection experiments, which, unlike dedicated neutrino telescopes, take full advantage of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. We find that argon-based detectors with target masses of $\mathcal{O}(100)$ tonnes (i.e. comparable in size to the proposed ARGO experiment) can detect $\mathcal{O}(10-100)$ pre SN neutrinos coming from a source at a characteristic distance of $\sim$200 pc, such as Betelgeuse ($\alpha$ Orionis). For such a source, large scale dark matter experiments could provide a SN warning siren $\sim$10 hours prior to the explosion. We also comment on the complementarity of large scale direct dark matter detection experiments and neutrino telescopes in the understanding of core-collapse SN.

Read this paper on arXiv…

N. Raj, V. Takhistov and S. Witte
Fri, 24 May 19
56/60

Comments: 9 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables