Getting the Most from Detection of Galactic Supernova Neutrinos in Future Large Liquid-Scintillator Detectors

Understand

Future large liquid-scintillator detectors can be implemented to observe neutrinos from a core-collapse supernova (SN) in our galaxy in various reaction channels: (1) The inverse beta decay $\overline{\nu}^{}_e + p \to n + e^+$; (2) The elastic neutrino-proton scattering $\nu + p \to \nu + p$; (3) The elastic neutrino-electron scattering $\nu + e^- \to \nu + e^-$; (4) The charged-current $\nu^{}_e$ interaction $\nu^{}_e + {^{12}}{\rm C} \to e^- + {^{12}}{\rm N}$; (5) The charged-current $\overline{\nu}^{}_e$ interaction $\overline{\nu}^{}_e + {^{12}}{\rm C} \to e^+ + {^{12}}{\rm B}$; (6) The neutral-current interaction $\nu + {^{12}}{\rm C} \to \nu + {^{12}}{\rm C}^*$.

• The less abundant $^{13}{\rm C}$ atoms in the liquid scintillator are also considered as a target, and both the charged-current interaction $\nu^{}_e + {^{13}}{\rm C} \to e^- + {^{13}}{\rm N}$ and the neutral-current interaction $\nu + {^{13}}{\rm C} \to \nu + {^{13}}{\rm C}^*$ are taken into account.
• In this work, we show for the first time that a global analysis of all these channels at a single {liquid-}scintillator detector, such as Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), is very important to test the average-energy hierarchy of SN neutrinos and how the total energy is partitioned among neutrino flavors.
• In addition, the dominant channels for reconstructing neutrino spectra and the impact of other channels are discussed in great detail.