Measuring neutrino masses with supernova neutrinos

A new method to study the effects of neutrino masses on a supernova neutrino signal is proposed. The method relies exclusively on the analysis of the full statistics of neutrino events, it is independent of astrophysical assumptions, and does not require the observation of any additional phenomenon to trace possible delays in the neutrino arrival times. A statistics of several thousands of events as could be collected by SuperKamiokande, would allow to explore a neutrino mass range somewhat below 1eV.