F. Halzen et al., POSSIBILITY THAT HIGH-ENERGY NEUTRINO TELESCOPES COULD DETECT SUPERNOVAE, Physical review. D. Particles and fields, 49(4), 1994, pp. 1758-1761
We have simulated the response of a high energy neutrino telescope to
the stream of low energy neutrinos produced by a supernova. The nomina
l threshold of such detectors is in the GeV energy range. The passage
of a large flux of MeV neutrinos during a period of seconds will never
theless be detected as an excess of single counting rates in all indiv
idual optical modules. Detectors under construction, which consist of
roughly 200 modules, will be able to detect a galactic supernova at or
above the 5 sigma level. The rate of fake signals is, however, too la
rge for the telescope to serve as a neutrino watch. Such capability re
quires detectors with roughly 3 times the number of optical modules; t
hus, this will be within easy reach of the next generation detectors.