Search for supernova neutrino bursts with the AMANDA detector

The core collapse of a massive star in the Milky Way will produce a neutrino burst, intense enough to be detected by existing underground detectors. The AMANDA neutrino telescope located deep in the South Pole ice can detect MeV neutrinos by a collective rate increase in all photo-multipliers on top...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astroparticle Physics
Main Authors: Ahrens, J., Bai, X., Botner, O., Yodh, G., Young, S., Bouchta, A., Boyce, M. M., Carius, S., Chen, A., Chirkin, D., Conrad, Jan, Cooley, J., Costa, C. G. S., Cowen, D. F., Barouch, G., Dalberg, E., DeYoung, T., Desiati, P., Dewulf, J. P., Doksus, P., Edsjo, J., Ekstrom, P., Feser, T., Gaug, M., Goldschmidt, A., Barwick, S. W., Hallgren, A., Halzen, F., Hanson, K., Hardtke, R., Hellwig, M., Heukenkamp, H., Hill, G. C., Hulth, P. O., Hundertmark, S., Jacobsen, J., Bay, R. C., Karle, A., Kim, J., Koci, B., Kopke, L., Kowalski, M., Lamoureux, J. I., Leich, H., Leuthold, M., Lindahl, P., Liubarsky, I., Becka, T., Loaiza, P., Lowder, D. M.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Science 2002
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Online Access:https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/390213
https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/search?p=id:%22PUBDB-2017-09372%22
Description
Summary:The core collapse of a massive star in the Milky Way will produce a neutrino burst, intense enough to be detected by existing underground detectors. The AMANDA neutrino telescope located deep in the South Pole ice can detect MeV neutrinos by a collective rate increase in all photo-multipliers on top of dark noise. The main source of light comes from positrons produced in the CC-reaction of anti-electron neutrinos on free protons $\bar\nu_e + p \to e^+ + n$. This paper describes the first supernova search performed on the full sets of data taken during 1997 and 1998 (215 days of live time) with 302 of the detector's optical modules. No candidate events resulted from this search. The performance of the detector is calculated, yielding a 70% coverage of the Galaxy with one background fake per year with 90% efficiency for the detector configuration under study. An upper limit at the 90% c.l. on the rate of stellar collapses in the Milky Way is derived, yielding 4.3 events per year. A trigger algorithm is presented and its performance estimated. Possible improvements of the detector hardware are reviewed.