Uncovering the neutrino mass ordering with the next galactic core-collapse supernova neutrino burst using water Cherenkov detectors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how water Cherenkov detectors can determine the neutrino mass ordering from a galactic supernova, highlighting the importance of supernova modeling accuracy for reliable results.

Contribution

It compares neutrino flavor distributions across multiple supernova models to assess their impact on mass ordering determination using water Cherenkov detectors.

Findings

Mass ordering is correctly identified or remains inconclusive in all models.

No false positives in mass ordering determination.

Model variations significantly affect the predicted neutrino signals.

Abstract

A major challenge of particle physics is determining the neutrino mass ordering (MO). Due to matter effects, the flavor content of the neutrino flux from a Core-Collapse Supernova (CCSN) depends on the true neutrino MO resulting in markedly different energy and angle distributions for the measured lepton in water Cherenkov neutrino detectors. In this article, those distributions are compared for eight different CCSN models and used to study how their differences affect the determination of the neutrino mass ordering. In all cases, the inferred neutrino mass ordering is found to be either correct or inconclusive, with no significant false positives. However, the substantial variation observed among model predictions emphasizes the criticality of ongoing research in CCSN modeling.