Neutrinos from Early-Phase, Pulsar-Driven Supernovae

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  • 28 August 2001
Abstract
Neutron stars, just after their formation, are surrounded by expanding, dense, and very hot envelopes which radiate thermal photons. Protons can be accelerated in the wind zones of such energetic pulsars to very high energies. These protons lose energy efficiently in collisions with thermal photons and with the matter of the envelope, mainly via pion production. When the temperature of radiation inside the envelope of supernovae drops below ~ 3x10^6 K, these pions decay before losing energy and produce high energy neutrinos. We estimate the flux of muon neutrinos emitted during such an early phase of the pulsar - supernova envelope interaction. We find that a 0.1 km^2 neutrino detector should be able to detect on the order of hundreds of neutrinos above 1 TeV within about one year after the explosion from a supernova in our Galaxy. This result holds if these pulsars have surface magnetic fields typical of those observed for radio pulsars, and for initial periods on the order of a few milliseconds when the pulsar is formed.

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