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TeV Neutrinos and GeV Photons from Shock Breakout in Supernovae

Eli Waxman·Abraham Loeb
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Abstract

We show that as a Type II supernova shock breaks out of its progenitor star, it becomes collisionless and may accelerate protons to energies >10 TeV. Inelastic nuclear collisions of these protons produce a ~1 hr long flash of TeV neutrinos and 10 GeV photons, about 10 hr after the thermal (10 MeV) neutrino burst from the cooling neutron star. A Galactic supernova in a red supergiant star would produce a photon and neutrino flux of ~10^{-4} erg/cm^2 s. A km^2 neutrino detector will detect ~100 muons, thus allowing to constrain both supernova models and neutrino properties.

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Eli Waxman, Abraham Loeb. 2001-02-19. TeV Neutrinos and GeV Photons from Shock Breakout in Supernovae. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.87.071101

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