Abstract
Emission of light photinos from supernovas is considered. If the mass of the selectron is of the order of the weak boson mass, the rate of production of light photinos in a collapsed star is comparable to that of the neutrinos. Light photinos can therefore compete with neutrinos in the cooling of the hot nascent neutron star. Cross sections for photino-electron and photino-nucleon scatterings, including degeneracy effects, are calculated to determine the opacity of the photinos in the protoneutron core. An upper limit on the energy radiated in the form of light particles other than the known neutrino species, based on the SN 1987A data, is used to derive bounds on photino-matter couplings. The constraint results in upper bounds on squark and selectron masses. It is found that selectron and squark masses of electroweak scale are not ruled out by the data, even though only a limited region of the parameter space remains. Signatures for detecting the photino component in future supernovas are suggested.
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