Detection of Supernova Neutrinos

The neutrino burst from a core-collapse supernova can provide information about the star explosion mechanism and the mechanisms of proto neutron star cooling but also about the intrinsic properties of the neutrino such as flavor oscillations. One important question is to understand to which extent can the supernova and the neutrino physics be decoupled in the observation of a single supernova. The capabilities of present and future large underground neutrino detectors to yield information about the time and flavor dependent neutrino signal from a future galactic supernova are described in this paper. Neutrinos from past cosmic supernovae are also observable and their detection will improve our knowledge of the core-collapse rates and average neutrino emission. A comparison between the different experimental techniques is included.