SuperNova Early Warning System

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The SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS) is a network of neutrino detectors designed to give early warning to astronomers in the event of a supernova in the Milky Way, our home galaxy, or in a nearby galaxy such as the Large Magellanic Cloud or the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.

Contents

As of March 2021, [1] SNEWS has not issued any supernova alerts. This is unsurprising, as supernovae appear to be rare: the most recent known supernova remnant in the Milky Way was around the turn of the 20th century, and the most recent Milky Way supernova confirmed to have been observed was Kepler's Supernova in 1604.

SNEWS 2.0

In June 2019 a "SNEWS 2.0" workshop was held at Laurentian University of Sudbury in Canada, focused on plans for an update of SNEWS. [1] [2] As the result, an upgraded system was devised under the name "SNEWS 2.0". [3] [4]

Neutrino detection

Powerful bursts of electron neutrinose) with typical energies of the order of 10 MeV and duration of the order of 10 seconds are produced in the core of a red giant star as it collapses on itself via the "neutronization" reaction, i.e. fusion of protons and electrons into neutrons and neutrinos: p + e → n + νe. It is expected that the neutrinos are emitted well before the light from the supernova peaks, so in principle neutrino detectors could give warning to astronomers that a supernova has occurred and may soon be visible. The neutrino pulse from supernova 1987A arrived 3 hours before the associated photons – but SNEWS was not yet active and it was not recognised as a supernova event until after the photons arrived.

Directional precision of approximately 5° is expected. [5] SNEWS is not able to give warning of a type Ia supernova, as they are not expected to produce significant numbers of neutrinos. Type Ia supernovae, caused by a runaway nuclear fusion reaction in a white dwarf star, are thought to account for roughly one-third of all supernovae. [6]

There are currently seven neutrino detector members of SNEWS: Borexino, Daya Bay, KamLAND, HALO, IceCube, LVD, and Super-Kamiokande. [7] SNEWS began operation prior to 2004, with three members (Super-Kamiokande, LVD, and SNO). The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is no longer active as it is being upgraded to its successor program SNO+.

The detectors send reports of a possible supernova to a computer at Brookhaven National Laboratory to identify a supernova. If the SNEWS computer identifies signals from two detectors within 10 seconds, the computer will send a supernova alert to observatories around the world to study the supernova. [8] The SNEWS mailing list is open-subscription, and the general public is allowed to sign up; however, the SNEWS collaboration encourages amateur astronomers to instead use Sky and Telescope magazine's AstroAlert service, which is linked to SNEWS.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutrino</span> Elementary particle with extremely low mass

A neutrino is a fermion that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero. The rest mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles. The weak force has a very short range, the gravitational interaction is extremely weak due to the very small mass of the neutrino, and neutrinos do not participate in the electromagnetic interaction or the strong interaction. Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nova</span> Nuclear explosion in a white dwarf star

A nova is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramatic appearance of a nova vary, depending on the circumstances of the two progenitor stars. All observed novae involve white dwarfs in close binary systems. The main sub-classes of novae are classical novae, recurrent novae (RNe), and dwarf novae. They are all considered to be cataclysmic variable stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supernova</span> Explosion of a star at its end of life

A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original object, called the progenitor, either collapses to a neutron star or black hole, or is completely destroyed to form a diffuse nebula. The peak optical luminosity of a supernova can be comparable to that of an entire galaxy before fading over several weeks or months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sudbury Neutrino Observatory</span> Underground laboratory in Ontario, Canada

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a neutrino observatory located 2100 m underground in Vale's Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector was designed to detect solar neutrinos through their interactions with a large tank of heavy water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Super-Kamiokande</span> Japanese neutrino observatory

Super-Kamiokande is a neutrino observatory located under Mount Ikeno near the city of Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It is located 1,000 m (3,300 ft) underground in the Mozumi Mine in Hida's Kamioka area. The observatory was designed to detect high-energy neutrinos, to search for proton decay, study solar and atmospheric neutrinos, and keep watch for supernovae in the Milky Way Galaxy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SN 1987A</span> 1987 supernova event in the constellation Dorado

SN 1987A was a type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs from Earth and was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova. 1987A's light reached Earth on February 23, 1987, and as the earliest supernova discovered that year, was labeled "1987A". Its brightness peaked in May of that year, with an apparent magnitude of about 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kepler's Supernova</span> Supernova visible from Earth in the 17th century

SN 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a Type Ia supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus. Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova in the Milky Way galaxy to have been unquestionably observed by the naked eye, occurring no farther than 6 kiloparsecs from Earth. Before the adoption of the current naming system for supernovae, it was named for Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who described it in De Stella Nova.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutrino astronomy</span> Observing low-mass stellar particles

Neutrino astronomy is the branch of astronomy that observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors in special observatories. Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun or high energy astrophysical phenomena, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms in the atmosphere. Neutrinos rarely interact with matter, meaning that it is unlikely for them to scatter along their trajectory, unlike photons. Therefore, neutrinos offer a unique opportunity to observe processes that are inaccessible to optical telescopes, such as reactions in the Sun's core. Neutrinos can also offer a very strong pointing direction compared to charged particle cosmic rays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Type Ia supernova</span> Type of supernova in binary systems

A Type Ia supernova is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white dwarf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutrino detector</span> Physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos

A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos. Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino detectors are often built underground, to isolate the detector from cosmic rays and other background radiation. The field of neutrino astronomy is still very much in its infancy – the only confirmed extraterrestrial sources as of 2018 are the Sun and the supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Another likely source is the blazar TXS 0506+056 about 3.7 billion light years away. Neutrino observatories will "give astronomers fresh eyes with which to study the universe".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SNOLAB</span> Canadian neutrino laboratory

SNOLAB is a Canadian underground science laboratory specializing in neutrino and dark matter physics. Located 2 km below the surface in Vale's Creighton nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario, SNOLAB is an expansion of the existing facilities constructed for the original Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) solar neutrino experiment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of supernova observation</span> Ancient and modern recorded observations of supernovae explosions

The known history of supernova observation goes back to 1006 AD. All earlier proposals for supernova observations are speculations with many alternatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Type II supernova</span> Explosion of a star 8 to 45 times the mass of the Sun

A Type II supernova or SNII results from the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. A star must have at least eight times, but no more than 40 to 50 times, the mass of the Sun (M) to undergo this type of explosion. Type II supernovae are distinguished from other types of supernovae by the presence of hydrogen in their spectra. They are usually observed in the spiral arms of galaxies and in H II regions, but not in elliptical galaxies; those are generally composed of older, low-mass stars, with few of the young, very massive stars necessary to cause a supernova.

The solar neutrino problem concerned a large discrepancy between the flux of solar neutrinos as predicted from the Sun's luminosity and as measured directly. The discrepancy was first observed in the mid-1960s and was resolved around 2002.

Multi-messenger astronomy is astronomy based on the coordinated observation and interpretation of signals carried by disparate "messengers": electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos, and cosmic rays. They are created by different astrophysical processes, and thus reveal different information about their sources.

The Helium And Lead Observatory (HALO) is a neutrino detector at SNOLab for the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS). It began engineering operation on May 8, 2012, and joined as an operational part of SNEWS in October 2015.

Eugene William Beier is an American physicist.

The diffuse supernova neutrino background(DSNB) is a theoretical population of neutrinos (and anti-neutrinos) cumulatively originating from all core-collapse supernovae events throughout the history of the universe. Though it has not yet been directly detected, the DSNB is theorized to be isotropic and consists of neutrinos with typical energies on the scale of 107 eV. Current detection efforts are limited by the influence of background noise in the search for DSNB neutrinos and are therefore limited to placing limits on the parameters of the DSNB, namely the neutrino flux. Restrictions on these parameters have gotten more strict in recent years, but many researchers are looking to make direct observations in the near future with next generation detectors. The DSNB is not to be confused with the cosmic neutrino background (CNB), which is comprised by relic neutrinos that were produced during the Big Bang and have much lower energies (10−4 to 10−6 eV).

Supernova neutrinos are weakly interactive elementary particles produced during a core-collapse supernova explosion. A massive star collapses at the end of its life, emitting on the order of 1058 neutrinos and antineutrinos in all lepton flavors. The luminosity of different neutrino and antineutrino species are roughly the same. They carry away about 99% of the gravitational energy of the dying star as a burst lasting tens of seconds. The typical supernova neutrino energies are 10 to 20 MeV. Supernovae are considered the strongest and most frequent source of cosmic neutrinos in the MeV energy range.

Ken'ichi Nomoto is a Japanese astrophysicist and astronomer, known for his research on stellar evolution, supernovae, and the origin of heavy elements.

References

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