Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>New optical sensors with a segmented photosensitive area are being developed for the next generation of neutrino telescopes at the South Pole. In addition to increasing sensitivity to high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, we show that this will also lead to a significant improvement in sensitivity to MeV neutrinos, such as those produced in core-collapse supernovae (CCSN). These low-energy neutrinos can provide a detailed picture of the events after stellar core collapse, testing our understanding of these violent explosions. We present studies on the event-based detection of MeV neutrinos with a segmented sensor and, for the first time, the potential of a corresponding detector in the deep ice at the South Pole for the detection of extra-galactic CCSN. We find that exploiting temporal coincidences between signals in different photocathode segments, a <jats:inline-formula><jats:alternatives><jats:tex-math>$$27\ \mathrm {M}_{\odot }$$</jats:tex-math><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
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<mml:mn>27</mml:mn>
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<mml:mi>M</mml:mi>
<mml:mo>⊙</mml:mo>
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</mml:math></jats:alternatives></jats:inline-formula> progenitor mass CCSN can be detected up to a distance of 341 kpc with a false detection rate of <jats:inline-formula><jats:alternatives><jats:tex-math>$${0.01}\,\hbox {year}^{-1}$$</jats:tex-math><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
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<mml:mrow>
<mml:mn>0.01</mml:mn>
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<mml:mn>1</mml:mn>
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</mml:math></jats:alternatives></jats:inline-formula> with a detector consisting of 10,000 sensors. Increasing the number of sensors to 20,000 and reducing the optical background by a factor of 70 expands the range such that a CCSN detection rate of 0.1 per year is achieved, while keeping the false detection rate at <jats:inline-formula><jats:alternatives><jats:tex-math>$${0.01}\,{\hbox {year}^{-1}}$$</jats:tex-math><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
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<mml:mrow>
<mml:mn>0.01</mml:mn>
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<mml:mn>1</mml:mn>
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</mml:math></jats:alternatives></jats:inline-formula>.</jats:p>