Detectability of collective neutrino oscillation signatures in the supernova explosion of a 8.8 M⊙ star

Abstract

In order to investigate the impact of collective neutrino oscillations (CNO) on the neutrino signal from a nearby supernova, we perform 3-flavor neutrino oscillation simulations employing the multiangle effect. The background hydrodynamic model is based on the neutrino hydrodynamic simulation of a 8.8 \Msun progenitor star. We find that CNO commences after some 100 ms post bounce. Before this, CNO is suppressed by matter-induced decoherence. In the inverted mass hierarchy, the spectrum of $\bar{\nu}_e$ becomes softer after the onset of CNO. To evaluate the detectability of this modification, we define a hardness ratio between the number of high energy neutrino events and low energy neutrino events adopting a fixed critical energy. We show that Hyper-Kamiokande (HK) can distinguish the effect of CNO for supernova distances out to $\sim 10$ kpc. On the other hand, for the normal mass hierarchy, the spectrum of $\nu_e$ becomes softer after the onset of CNO, and we show that DUNE can distinguish this feature for supernova distances out to $\sim 10$ kpc. More work is necessary to optimize the best value of critical energy for maximum sensitivity. We also show that if the spectrum of $\bar{\nu}_e$ in HK becomes softer due to CNO, the spectrum of $\nu_e$ in DUNE becomes harder, and vice versa. This synergistic observations in $\bar{\nu}_e$ and $\nu_e$, by HK and DUNE respectively, will be an intriguing opportunity to test the occurrence of CNO.