Supernova Neutrinos, Neutrino Oscillations, and the Mass of the Progenitor Star

Abstract

We investigate the initial progenitor mass dependence of the early-phase neutrino signal from supernovae taking neutrino oscillations into account. The early-phase analysis has advantages in that it is not affected by the time evolution of the density structure of the star due to shock propagation or whether the remnant is a neutron star or a black hole. The initial mass affects the evolution of the massive star and its presupernova structure, which is important for two reasons when considering the neutrino signal. First, the density profile of the mantle affects the dynamics of neutrino oscillation in supernova. Second, the final iron core structure determines the features of the neutrino burst, i.e., the luminosity and the average energy. We find that both effects are rather small. This is desirable when we try to extract information on neutrino parameters from future supernova-neutrino observations. Although the uncertainty due to the progenitor mass is not small for intermediate $θ_{13}$ ($10^{-5} \lesssim \sin^{2}{2 θ_{13}} \lesssim 10^{-3}$), we can, nevertheless, determine the character of the mass hierarchy and whether $θ_{13}$ is very large or very small.