Presupernova neutrinos in large dark matter direct detection experiments
Nirmal Raj, Volodymyr Takhistov, Samuel J. Witte
Abstract
The next Galactic core-collapse supernova (SN) is a highly anticipated observational target for neutrino telescopes. However, even prior to collapse, massive dying stars shine copiously in ``pre-supernova'' (pre-SN) neutrinos, which can potentially act as efficient SN warning alarms and provide novel information about the very last stages of stellar evolution. We explore the sensitivity to pre-SN neutrinos of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments, which, unlike dedicated neutrino telescopes, take full advantage of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. We find that argon-based detectors with target masses of $\mathcal{O}(100)$ tons (i.e., comparable in size to the proposed ARGO experiment) operating at sub-keV thresholds can detect $\mathcal{O}(10--100)$ pre-SN neutrinos coming from a source at a characteristic distance of $\ensuremath{\sim}200\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{pc}$, such as Betelgeuse ($\ensuremath{\alpha}$ Orionis). Large-scale xenon-based experiments with similarly low thresholds could also be sensitive to pre-SN neutrinos. For a Betelgeuse-type source, large-scale dark matter experiments could provide a SN warning siren $\ensuremath{\sim}10$ hours prior to the explosion. We also comment on the complementarity of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments and neutrino telescopes in the understanding of core-collapse SN.