Revealing local failed supernovae with neutrino telescopes

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for neutrino telescopes to detect failed supernovae, which are black hole-forming collapses, within a few megaparsecs, offering a new way to observe and understand black hole formation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that high-energy neutrino bursts from failed supernovae can be detected by Megaton detectors within a few Mpc, enabling the first direct observations of black hole formation.

Findings

Neutrino bursts from failed supernovae are detectable within 4-5 Mpc.

Detection rate could be up to one per decade.

Detection could provide first direct evidence of black hole formation.

Abstract

We study the detectability of neutrino bursts from nearby direct black hole-forming collapses (failed supernovae) at Megaton detectors. Due to their high energetics, these bursts could be identified - by the time coincidence of N >= 2 or N >= 3 events within a ~ 1 s time window - from as far as ~ 4-5 Mpc away. This distance encloses several supernova-rich galaxies, so that failed supernova bursts could be detected at a rate of up to one per decade, comparable to the expected rate of the more common, but less energetic, neutron star-forming collapses. Thus, the detection of a failed supernova within the lifetime of a Mt detector is realistic. It might give the first evidence of direct black hole formation, with important implications on the physics of this phenomenon.