Absolute $\nu$ Mass Measurement with the DUNE Experiment

Time of flight delay in the supernova neutrino signal offers a unique tool to set model-independent constraints on the absolute neutrino mass. The presence of a sharp time structure during a first emission phase, the so-called neutronization burst in the electron neutrino flavor time distribution, makes this channel a very powerful one. Large liquid argon underground detectors will provide precision measurements of the time dependence of the electron neutrino fluxes. We derive here a new $\nu$ mass sensitivity attainable at the future DUNE far detector from a future supernova collapse in our galactic neighborhood, finding a sub-eV reach under favorable scenarios. These values are competitive with those expected for laboratory direct neutrino mass searches.

Figure 1

Number of ${\nu }_e$ events as a function of time, obtained by an energy integration of Eq. (6). The number of events per time bin is shown for equal bin widths in logarithmic space, for more clarity. A SN distance of 10 kpc is assumed. Several histograms are shown: neglecting oscillations, and including oscillations for the NO and IO cases. For IO, we show the variation of the Earth matter effects with zenith angle $\theta$.

Figure 2

$\mathrm{\Delta }{\chi }^2(m_{\nu })$ profiles as a function of neutrino mass $m_{\nu }$, for DUNE generated samples assuming massless neutrinos and a SN distance of 10 kpc. The mean sensitivities and their $\pm 1\sigma$ uncertainties are shown with solid lines and filled bands, respectively. The horizontal dotted line depicts the 95% C.L.

Figure 3

Dependence of the 95% C.L. neutrino mass sensitivity with the distance $D$ from Earth at which the SN explodes. The mean and standard deviation of the expected sensitivity values are shown with solid lines and filled bands, respectively.