Tomography of Massive Stars from Core Collapse to Supernova Shock Breakout

Abstract

Neutrinos and gravitational waves are the only direct probes of the inner dynamics of a stellar core collapse. They are also the first signals to arrive from a supernova and, if detected, establish the moment when the shock wave is formed that unbinds the stellar envelope and later initiates the optical display upon reaching the stellar surface with a burst of UV and X-ray photons, the shock breakout (SBO). We discuss how neutrino observations can be used to trigger searches to detect the elusive SBO event. Observation of the SBO would provide several important constraints on progenitor structure and the explosion, including the shock propagation time (the duration between the neutrino burst and SBO), an observable that is important in distinguishing progenitor types. Our estimates suggest that next generation neutrino detectors could exploit the overdensity of nearby SNe to provide several such triggers per decade, more than an order of magnitude improvement over the present.