Determining neutrino and supernova parameters with a galactic supernova

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of some of the proposed next-generation neutrino experiments toa galactic supernova. In particular, we study how well the supernova parameters (the averageenergies and luminosities) can be separated from the unknown neutrino oscillation parameters(θ13 and the neutrino mass hierarchy). Experiments of three types, all in the 100 kiloton class, arecompared. These are: a 540 kton water Cherenkov detector, a 100 kton liquid argon detectorand a 50 kton scintillator detector. We demonstrate that practically all of these proposeddetectors have the possibility of determining the hierarchy of the neutrino masses if the angleθ13 is sufficiently large () and the hierarchy of the average energies is larger than about 20%. They can at the sametime determine some of the supernova parameters well. The average energy of theνμ and ντ species can be determined within 5% uncertainty in most of the parameter space suggestedby supernova simulations. The detection of several separable channels measuring differentcombinations of charged current and neutral current processes is crucial for determining the value ofθ13 and the hierarchy. However, there are cases where a few of the supernova parameters canbe determined rather well even if only the main charged current detection channel isavailable.