Neutrino signal from pair-instability supernovae

Abstract

A very massive star with a carbon-oxygen core in the range of $64$ M$_{\odot}<M_{\mathrm{CO}}<133$ M$_{\odot}$ is expected to undergo a very different kind of explosion known as a pair instability supernova. Pair instability supernovae are candidates for superluminous supernovae due to the prodigious amounts of radioactive elements they create. While the basic mechanism for the explosion is understood, how a star reaches a state is not, thus observations of a nearby pair-instability supernova would allow us to test current models of stellar evolution at the extreme of stellar masses. Much will be sought within the electromagnetic radiation we detect from such a supernova but we should not forget that the neutrinos from a pair-instability supernova contain unique signatures of the event that unambiguously identify this type of explosion. We calculate the expected neutrino flux at Earth from two, one-dimensional pair-instability supernova simulations which bracket the mass range of stars which explode by this mechanism taking into account the full time and energy dependence of the neutrino emission and the flavor evolution through the outer layers of the star. We calculate the neutrino signals in five different detectors chosen to represent present or near future designs. We find the more massive progenitors explode as pair-instability supernova which can easily be detected in multiple different neutrino detectors at the `standard' supernova distance of $10\;{\rm kpc}$ producing several events in DUNE, JUNE and SuperKamiokande, while the lightest progenitors only produce a handful of events (if any) in the same detectors. The proposed HyperKamiokande detector would detect neutrinos from a large pair-instability supernova as far as $\sim 50\;{\rm kpc}$ allowing it to reach the Megallanic Clouds and the several very high mass stars known to exist there.