Article

# Supernova neutrinos can tell us the neutrino mass hierarchy independently of flux models

Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
Physics Letters B (Impact Factor: 4.57). 01/2005; DOI:10.1016/j.physletb.2005.05.017
Source: arXiv

ABSTRACT We demonstrate that the detection of shock modulations of the neutrino spectra from a galactic core-collapse supernova is sufficient to obtain a high significance determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy if the supernova event is observed in both a Mton-class water Cherenkov detector and a 100 kton-class liquid argon detector. Neither detailed supernova neutrino flux modeling nor observation of Earth matter effects is needed for this determination. As a corollary, a nonzero value of θx will be established.

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