Supernovae and neutrinos

A long-standing problem in supernova physics is how to measure the total energy and temperature of nu(mu), nu(tau), nu(mu), and nu(tau). While of the highest importance, this is very difficult because these flavors only have neutral-current detector interactions. We propose that neutrino-proton elastic scattering, nu + p --> nu + p, can be used for the detection of supernova, neutrinos in scintillator detectors. It should be emphasized immediately that the dominant signal is on free protons. Though the proton recoil kinetic energy spectrum is soft, with T-p similar or equal to 2E(nu)(2)/M-p, and the scintillation light output from slow, heavily ionizing protons is quenched, the yield above a realistic threshold is nearly as large as that from nu(e) + p --> e(+) + n. In addition, the measured proton spectrum is related to the incident neutrino spectrum. The ability to detect this signal would give detectors like KamLAND and Borexino a crucial and unique role in the quest to detect supernova, neutrinos. These results are now published: J. F. Beacom, W. M. Farr and P. Vogel, Phys. Rev. D 66, 033001 (2002) [arXiv:hep-ph/0205220]; the details axe given there [1].