Study shows that the ATLAS detector can measure the flux of high-energy supernova neutrinos
High-energy neutrinos are extremely rare particles that have so far proved very difficult to detect. Fluxes of these rare particles were first detected by the IceCube Collaboration back in 2013.
Recent papers featured in Physical Review D and The Astrophysical Journal Letters found that galactic supernovae could be promising sources of high-energy neutrinos. This has inspired new studies exploring the possibility of detecting neutrinos originating from these sources using large particle collider detectors, such as the ATLAS detector at CERN.
Researchers at Harvard University, University of Nevada and Pennsylvania State University recently demonstrated that the ATLAS detector can measure the flux of high-energy supernova neutrinos. Their new paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could inspire future efforts aimed at detecting fluxes of high-energy neutrinos.
"Carlos A. Argüelles, Ali Kheirandish and I met each other at the KITP workshop in Santa Barbara, and figured out that high-energy supernova neutrinos are promising targets for not only large neutrino detectors but also particle physics detectors," Kohta Murase, co-author of the paper, told Phys.org. "Collider detectors such as ATLAS of LHC can be much better than neutrino detectors such as IceCube to study the properties of neutrinos (flavors, antineutrinos, new physics etc.)."
Muonspectrometer of ATLAS. Credit: CERN / Science Photo Library.
The tile calorimeter under construction, an iron detector at the center of ATLAS weighing nearly 4,000 metric tons, which serves as a useful volume for neutrino detection. Credit: CERN.