Sensitivity of the PICO-500 Bubble Chamber to Supernova Neutrinos Through Coherent Nuclear Elastic Scattering

Understand

Ton-scale direct dark matter search experiments should be sensitive to neutrino-induced recoil events from either $^8$B solar neutrinos or the brief but intense flux from a core collapse supernova in the Milky Way.

• These low-threshold detectors are sensitive to the very low recoil energies, of order 10 keV, deposited via coherent elastic scatters between supernova neutrinos and target nuclei.
• Large superheated fluid detectors like PICO-500, a bubble chamber to be initially filled with an active target of 1 t of C$_3$F$_8$, should see multiple-bubble events from CE$\nu$NS if the detector is live during a neutrino burst from a supernova at a distance up to 10 kpc.
• This paper discusses conditions under which bubble chambers could be used as an independent measurement in the event of a supernova similar to SN 1987A, with particular sensitivity to the currently less-constrained heavy-lepton $\nu_x$ channel.