Signatures of collective and matter effects on supernova neutrinos at large detectors

Abstract

We calculate the expected galactic supernova neutrino signal at large next-generation underground detectors. At different epochs after the explosion, the primary fluxes can be quite different. For these primary neutrino fluxes, spectral splits induced by collective neutrino flavor transformations can arise for either mass hierarchy in both neutrino and antineutrino channels. We classify flux models according to the nature and number of these splits, and calculate the observable electron-neutrino and electron-antineutrino spectra at Earth, taking into account subsequent matter effects. We find that some of the spectral splits could occur sufficiently close to the peak energies to produce significant distortions in the observable SN neutrino signal. The most striking signature of this effect would be presence of peculiar energy dependent modulations associated with Earth matter crossing, present only in portions of the SN neutrino energy spectra demarcated by spectral splits. These signatures at proposed large water Cherenkov, scintillation, and liquid Argon detectors could give hints about the primary SN neutrino fluxes, as well as on the neutrino mass hierarchy and the mixing angle theta_{13}.