Probing Late Neutrino Mass Properties with Supernova Neutrinos

Abstract

Models of late-time neutrino mass generation contain new interactions of the cosmic background neutrinos with supernova relic neutrinos (SRNs) through exchange of the on-shell light boson, leading to significant modification of the differential SRN flux observed at earth. We consider Abelian U(1) model for generating neutrino masses at low scales and we show that there is a large parameter space in this model for which the changes induced in the flux by the exchange of the light bosons might allow one to distinguish between neutrinos being Majorana or Dirac particles, the type of neutrino mass hierarchy (normal or inverted or quasi-degenerate), and could also possibly determine the absolute values of the neutrino masses. Measurements of the presence of these effects would be possible at the next-generation water Cerenkov detectors enriched with Gadolinium, or a large 100 kton liquid argon detector.