Supernova physics with DUNE

Abstract

Supernovae are dramatic, short‐lived astrophysical phenomena that release about 3 × 1053 ergs of energy in the form of neutrinos on timescales of a few seconds. A supernova marks the end nuclear fusion in massive stars and the transition to a neutron star or black hole. Massive neutrino detectors have the potential to observe the neutrino bursts and to learn quite a bit about the nature of supernova astrophysics as well as the nature of neutrinos. The only observation, to date, came in 1987, when neutrinos emitted by a supernova in the large magellanic cloud (LMC) were detected on Earth. Only about 24 events were observed at that time, but they confirmed many of our conceptions of the role of neutrinos in supernova. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) has the ability to greatly extend our knowledge of supernova and is complementary to others with large detectors that could also observe the burst.