Exploring the Fate of Stellar Core Collapse with Supernova Relic Neutrinos

Abstract

Core collapse of massive stars leads to the different fate for various physical factors, which gives different spectra of the emitted neutrinos. We focus on the supernova relic neutrinos (SRNs) as a probe to investigate the stellar collapse fate. We present the SRN fluxes and event rate spectra at a detector for three resultant states after stellar core collapse, the typical mass neutron star, the higher mass neutron star, or the failed supernova forming a black hole, based on different nuclear equations of state. Then possible SRN fluxes are formed as mixtures of the three components. We also show the expected sensitivities at the next-generation water-based Cherenkov detectors, SK-Gd and Hyper-Kamiokande, as constraining the mixture fractions. This study provides a practical example of extracting astrophysical constraints through the SRN measurement.