(Down-to-)Earth matter effect in supernova neutrinos

Understand

Neutrino oscillations in the Earth matter may introduce peculiar modulations in the supernova (SN) neutrino spectra.

• The detection of this effect has been proposed as diagnostic tool for the neutrino mass hierarchy at "large" 1-3 leptonic mixing angle theta13.
• We perform an updated study on the observability of this effect at large next-generation underground detectors (i.e., 0.4 Mton water Cherenkov, 50 kton scintillation and 100 kton liquid Argon detectors) based on neutrino fluxes from state-of-the-art SN simulations and accounting for statistical fluctuations via Montecarlo simulations.
• Since the average energies predicted by recent simulations are lower than previously expected and a tendency towards the equalization of the neutrino fluxes appears during the SN cooling phase, the detection of the Earth matter effect will be more challenging than expected from previous studies.