Detection of supernova neutrinos by neutrino-proton elastic scattering

We propose that neutrino-proton elastic scattering, n1p→n1p , can be used for the detection of supernova neutrinos in scintillator detectors. Though the proton recoil kinetic energy spectrum is soft, with Tp .2En /M p , and the scintillation light output from slow, heavily ionizing protons is quenched, the yield above a realistic threshold is nearly as large as that from n̄e1p→e1n . In addition, the measured proton spectrum is related to the incident neutrino spectrum, which solves a long-standing problem of how to separately measure the total energy and temperature of nm , nt , n̄m , and n̄t . The ability to detect this signal would give detectors like KamLAND and Borexino a crucial and unique role in the quest to detect supernova neutrinos.