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Neutrinos from the recent LMC supernova

Nature volume 326, pages 135–136 (1987)Cite this article

SIR - The supernova explosion that was observed recently1 in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) provides a unique opportunity to test the theory of neutron star formation in Type II supernova explosions. In particular, one can investigate the prediction that almost all of the gravitational binding energy of the residue neutron star (~3xl053 erg) was radiated within a few seconds in the form of ~1058 neutrinos with average energy ~10-15 MeV. Here, we calculate the expected neutrino signals in terrestrial detectors which, according to the standard supernova theory2"10, should have been observed during a short period (~1 s) before the onset of the optical supernova. (A measurement of the time delay between the first neutrino and optical pulses would be of great importance for our understanding of supernovae.) We also show how information on the fundamental properties of neutrinos (their life-times, masses and mixings, and their magnetic moments) can be obtained from neutrino observations of the LMC supernova. The number of neutrino-induced events in a terrestrial detector due to differential fluxes d0/d£ of neutrinos of types v, (v,=v,, vf, v,,, \v, VT, vt) is given by

where n. is the number of particles of type/ (atomic nuclei and electrons) in the target and 0(7) are their cross-sections for relevant reactions which depend on the neutrino type and on the neutrino energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA https://www.nature.com/nature

    J. N. BAHCALL

  2. Racah Institute for Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel https://www.nature.com/nature

    A. DAR

  3. Department of Physics and Space, Technion, Haifa, Israel https://www.nature.com/nature

    T. PIRAN

  4. Present address: The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA. https://www.nature.com/nature

    A. DAR & T. PIRAN

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BAHCALL, J., DAR, A. & PIRAN, T. Neutrinos from the recent LMC supernova. Nature 326, 135–136 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/326135a0

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