EstrellaNueva: An Open-source Software to Study the Interactions and Detection of Neutrinos Emitted by Supernovae

Abstract

Abstract Supernovae emit large fluxes of neutrinos, which can be detected by detectors on Earth. Future multi-kiloton scale detectors will be sensitive to several neutrino interaction channels, with thousands of events expected if a supernova emerges in the galaxy neighborhood. There are a limited number of tools to study the interaction rates of supernova neutrinos, although a plethora of available supernova models exist. EstrellaNueva is an open-source software to calculate expected rates of supernova neutrinos in detectors using target materials with typical compositions, and additional compositions can be easily added. This software considers the flavor transformation of neutrinos in the supernova through the adiabatic Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein effect, and their interaction in detectors through several channels. Most of the interaction cross sections, such as neutrino–electron and neutrino–proton elastic scattering, inverse beta decay, and coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering, have been analytically implemented. This software provides a link between supernova simulations and the expected events in detectors by calculating fluences and event rates in order to ease any comparison between theory and observation. It provides a simple and standalone tool to explore many physics scenarios, offering an option to add analytical cross sections and define any target material.