Can SuperCDMS Detect a Supernova?

In the final stages of a massive star’s life, its core collapses under gravity, triggering a giant explosion called a core-collapse supernova. About 99% of the released energy emerges as neutrinos, which escape within seconds and precede the light signal by hours. Detecting these neutrinos provides both an early warning and a probe of stellar collapse. Since galactic supernovae are rare—only a few per century—it is important to maximize the number of sensitive detectors. This work investigates whether the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment, located 2 km underground at SNOLAB in Sudbury, Canada, could detect such bursts. Although designed for dark matter, its cryogenic Ge and Si detectors reach sub-keV thresholds, enabling sensitivity to supernova neutrinos via coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEνNS), a neutral-current process enhanced in heavy nuclei. Using neutrino fluence spectra from SN1987A and a 28 M⊙ model, I estimate CEνNS recoil spectra peaking below 1 keV, within SuperCDMS HV-mode reach. Expected yields are tens of events per Si detector and hundreds per Ge detector, concentrated in a few-second burst. Neutrino interactions in the ∼108.5 tonnes of lead shielding could produce secondary neutrons, but even under conservative efficiency assumptions, this background contributes only ≲20 detectable events for a 1 kpc supernova. These results show that SuperCDMS could provide a statistically significant CEνNS detection of a galactic supernova, making it a valuable dual-purpose experiment that supports both dark matter searches and supernova neutrino detection.