MPP-2006-28 Earth matter effects in supernova neutrinos: Optimal detector locations

• Main Authors: A. Mirizzi, G. G. Raffelt, P. D. Serpico
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Supernova neutrinos; neutrino detectors; North Pole; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.255.9741; http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0604300v1.pdf

Abstract. A model-independent experimental signature for flavor oscillations in the neutrino signal from the next Galactic supernova (SN) would be the observation of Earth matter effects. We calculate the probability for observing a Galactic SN shadowed by the Earth as a function of the detector’s geographic latitude. This probability depends only mildly on details of the Galactic SN distribution. A location at the North Pole would be optimal with a shadowing probability of about 60%, but a far-northern location such as Pyhäsalmi in Finland, the proposed site for a largevolume scintillator detector, is almost equivalent (58%). We also consider several pairs of detector locations and calculate the probability that only one of them is shadowed, allowing a comparison between a shadowed and a direct signal. For the South Pole combined with Kamioka this probability is almost 75%, for the South Pole combined with Pyhäsalmi it is almost 90%. One particular scenario consists of a largevolume scintillator detector located in Pyhäsalmi to measure the geo-neutrino flux in a continental location and another such detector in Hawaii to measure it in an oceanic location. The probability that only one of them is shadowed exceeds 50 % whereas the probability that at least one is shadowed is about 80%.