Neutrinos play a crucial role in the collapse and explosion of massive stars, governing the infall dynamics of the stellar core, triggering and fueling the explosion and driving the cooling and deleptonization of the newly formed neutron star. Due to their role neutrinos carry information from the heart of the explosion and, due to their weakly interacting nature, offer the only direct probe of the dynamics and thermodynamics at the center of a supernova. In this paper, we review the present status of modelling the neutrino physics and signal formation in collapsing and exploding stars. We assess the capability of current and planned large underground neutrino detectors to yield faithful information of the time and flavor dependent neutrino signal from a future Galactic supernova. We show how the observable neutrino burst would provide a benchmark for fundamental supernova physics with unprecedented richness of detail. Exploiting the treasure of the measured neutrino events requires a careful discrimination of source-generated properties from signal features that originate on the way to the detector. As for the latter, we discuss self-induced flavor conversions associated with neutrino-neutrino interactions that occur in the deepest stellar regions; matter effects that modify the pattern of flavor conversions in the dynamical stellar envelope; neutrino-oscillation signatures that result from structural features associated with the shock-wave propagation as well as turbulent mass motions in post-shock layers. Finally, we highlight our current understanding of the formation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background and we analyse the perspectives for a detection of this relic signal that integrates the contributions from all past core-collapse supernovae in the Universe.

Supernova neutrinos: production, oscillations and detection

Supernova Neutrinos: Production, Oscillations and Detection

This paper provides a technical description of the SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS), an international network of experiments with the goal of providing an early warning of a galactic supernova.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/6/1/114/pdf

SNEWS: The Supernova Early Warning System

A core-collapse supernova will produce an enormous burst of neutrinos of all flavors in the few-tens-of-MeV range. Measurement of the flavor, time, and energy structure of a nearby core-collapse neutrino burst will yield answers to many physics and astrophysics questions. The neutrinos left over from past cosmic supernovae are also observable, and their detection will improve knowledge of core-collapse rates and average neutrino emission. This review describes experimental techniques for detection of core-collapse neutrinos, as well as the sensitivities of current and future detectors.

Supernova Neutrino Detection

A core-collapse supernova will produce an enormous burst of neutrinos of all flavors in the few-tens-of-MeV range. Measurement of the flavor, time and energy structure of a nearby core-collapse neutrino burst will yield answers to many physics and astrophysics questions. The neutrinos left over from past cosmic supernovae are also observable, and their detection will improve knowledge of core collapse rates and average neutrino emission. This review describes experimental techniques for detection of core-collapse neutrinos, as well as the sensitivities of current and future detectors.

We discuss here the characteristics of the event detected in the Mont Blanc Underground Neutrino Observatory on February 23, 1987, consisting of 5 interactions recorded during 7s. The measured energies of the 5 pulses, the duration of the burst, and the advance of the detection time in comparison with the first optical observations give evidence that the event can be explained in terms of detection of neutrinos emitted during the stellar collapse in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1209/0295-5075/3/12/011/pdf

On the Event Observed in the Mont Blanc Underground Neutrino Observatory during the Occurrence of Supernova 1987a

Caracteristiques de l'evenement detecte le 23 fevrier 1987, a l'observatoire souterrain du Mont Blanc, consistant en 5 interactions enregistrees durant 7 secondes

P. V. Kortchaguin

Papers

On the Event Observed in the Mont Blanc Underground Neutrino Observatory during the Occurrence of Supernova 1987a

Neutrino observations from supernova 1987a.