Correlation of Gravitational Waves–Neutrino Detectors: The Long Neutrino Voyage from SN1987A

The correlation between the data obtained with two gravitational wave (GW) detectors (in Rome and in Maryland) and two neutrino detectors (LSD in Italy and Kamiokande in Japan) has been studied in more detail. If we indicate with U1 the response of the gravitational wave detectors and with U2 the response of the neutrino detectors, we find that there is a clear time correlation between U1 and U2: namely U2 comes later than U1 by an amount depending on the energy measured in the neutrino detectors (the delay decreases with the detected neutrino energy). A straightforward calculation would yield a mass for the U2 particles between 4 and 6 eV. If one further assumes that the U2 is due to neutrinos whose mass has been evaluated to be less than 0.1 eV (at 90% c.l.), we hazard the idea that a slow down during the neutrinos’ 168 000 light-year travel from SN1987A to Earth could be inferred.