Supernova Burst and Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background Simulator for Water Cherenkov Detectors

Abstract

If a Galactic core-collapse supernova explosion occurs in the future, it will be critical to rapidly alert the community to the direction of the supernova by utilizing neutrino signals in order to enable the initiation of follow-up optical observations. In addition, there is anticipation that observation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background will yield discoveries in the near future, given that experimental upper limits are approaching theoretical predictions. We have developed a new supernova event simulator for water Cherenkov neutrino detectors, such as the highly sensitive Super-Kamiokande. This simulator calculates the neutrino interaction in water for two simulation purposes, individual core-collapse supernova bursts and diffuse supernova neutrino background. Based on this simulator, we can evaluate the precision in determining the location of supernovae and estimate the expected number of events related to the diffuse supernova neutrino background in Super-Kamiokande. In this paper, we describe the basic structure of the simulator and its demonstration.

Performance of SK-Gd’s Upgraded Real-time Supernova Monitoring System

“…We generate events in SK using SKSNSim (Super-Kamiokande Supernova Simulation), an event generator for SN-related neutrino interactions (Nakanishi et al 2024). As illustrated in Figure 6, for an SN at a given distance in an arbitrarily chosen position and a given neutrino oscillation case, SKSNSim computes the expected number of the neutrino interactions listed in Section 2 and generates events from the fluxes of the input SN model and cross sections.…”