Observation of Supernova Neutrinos via CEvNS Glow

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) is a neutral-current process in which a neutrino scatters off an entire nucleus, depositing a tiny recoil energy. The process is important in core-collapse supernovae and also presents an opportunity for detection of the burst of neutrinos ejected in the collapse within low-threshold detectors designed for dark matter detection. Though the CEvNS process dominates low-energy interactions (tens of MeV), it produces very little energy deposition from the target nuclear recoil. The challenge of a CEvNS observation is reduced somewhat if a nearby core-collapse supernova acts as a high-flux source, producing thousands of CEvNS events in larger detector volumes over mere seconds. For detectors making use of scintillation to record particle energy loss, the effect would be a uniformly distributed, isotropic scintillation—a "CEvNS glow"—throughout the detector. This talk will summarize the prospects for supernova burst detection via CEvNS in existing and future large-scale neutrino detectors.