Supernova neutrino detection in NOvA

Understand

The NOvA long-baseline neutrino experiment uses a pair of large, segmented, liquid-scintillator calorimeters to study neutrino oscillations, using GeV-scale neutrinos from the Fermilab NuMI beam.

• These detectors are also sensitive to the flux of neutrinos which are emitted during a core-collapse supernova through inverse beta decay interactions on carbon at energies of $\mathcal{O}(10~\text{MeV})$.
• This signature provides a means to study the dominant mode of energy release for a core-collapse supernova occurring in our galaxy.
• We describe the data-driven software trigger system developed and employed by the NOvA experiment to identify and record neutrino data from nearby galactic supernovae.