Physical Society Colloquium

What Stubs and Sparkles In Vast Vats of Liquid Will Tell Us About Exploding Stars

Kate Scholberg

Department of Physics
Duke University

When a massive star collapses at the end of its life, nearly all of the gravitational binding energy of the resulting remnant is released in the form of neutrinos. I will discuss the nature of the core-collapse neutrino burst and what we can learn about particle physics and about astrophysics from the detection of these neutrinos. I will cover supernova neutrino detection techniques in general, current supernova neutrino detectors, and prospects for specific future experiments.