Can Neutrino Detectors Predict Supernovae?

[Romulo Binuya]

Is it true that professional and amateur astronomers can anticipate supernova photon-stream by means of neutrino detectors, how does it works?

 

[mfb]

Supernovae release neutrinos a bit before the burst of visible light can leave the star. They arrive on Earth a bit earlier than light, and neutrino detectors can detect them (if the supernova is close enough).

 

[Romulo Binuya]

It seems various observatory are linked with sort of notification system about incoming photon stream as this message is telling... "The untriggered optical detection of GRB 130427A by CRTS makes this one of the few GRBs that have been detected without prior knowledge of the event".
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=5042

 

[glappkaeft]

It seems various observatory are linked with sort of notification system about incoming photon stream as this message is telling... "The untriggered optical detection of GRB 130427A by CRTS makes this one of the few GRBs that have been detected without prior knowledge of the event".
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=5042

Yes, it one of the tasks of the Swift space observatory to give early warning of gamma ray bursts.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

That's interesting article about Swift it had observed 500 GRB! Maybe there is another system that tells Swift to look in those particular direction? I'll find out :-)

 

[Chronos]

Neutrinos are exceedingly difficult to detect, and arrive only seconds [at best] before EM photons. It's not a very efficient detection method.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

I found SNEWS, but their website it seems is in hiatus... no activity since 2012.
http://snews.bnl.gov/

 

[mfb]

Neutrinos are exceedingly difficult to detect, and arrive only seconds [at best] before EM photons. It's not a very efficient detection method.

Minutes to hours according to SNEWS. Enough time to alert scientists and to look in the right direction with telescopes.

 

[phyzguy]

These responses are talking about the detection of the neutrinos emitted after the core has collapsed. However, even before the core has collapsed, the number of neutrinos emitted increases dramatically as the temperature of the core increases and core nuclear burning progresses to higher temperature reactions such as silicon burning. There is a possibility of detecting these neutrinos from nearby pre-supernovae as much as hours to days before the core actually collapses, which would allow us to direct instruments at the star and watch the actual core collapse events. These pre-collapse neutrinos could be detected by neutrino detectors which are currently in the planning stages. I've attached an article that discusses this in more detail