The Progenitor Dependence of the Preexplosion Neutrino Emission in Core-Collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This study uses detailed simulations of core-collapse supernovae across various progenitor stars to identify how neutrino emissions depend on stellar structure, with implications for observational detection and understanding stellar evolution.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the dependence of neutrino signals on progenitor star properties using advanced simulations, highlighting weak dependence on the nuclear equation of state.

Findings

Neutrino luminosities correlate with progenitor compactness.

Qualitative trends are weakly affected by the nuclear equation of state.

Galactic supernova neutrino detection can reveal progenitor structure.

Abstract

We perform spherically-symmetric general-relativistic simulations of core collapse and the postbounce preexplosion phase in 32 presupernova stellar models of solar metallicity with zero-age-main-sequence masses of 12 M_{sun} to 120 M_{sun}. Using energy-dependent three-species neutrino transport in the two-moment approximation with an analytic closure, we show that the emitted neutrino luminosities and spectra follow very systematic trends that are correlated with the compactness (~M/R) of the progenitor star's inner regions via the accretion rate in the preexplosion phase. We find that these qualitative trends depend only weakly on the nuclear equation of state, but quantitative observational statements will require independent constraints on the equation of state and the rotation rate of the core as well as a more complete understanding of neutrino oscillations. We investigate the simulated response of water Cherenkov detectors to the electron antineutrino fluxes from our models and find that the large statistics of a galactic core collapse event may allow robust conclusions on the inner structure of the progenitor star.