Search for neutrinos from stellar gravitational collapse with the MACRO experiment at Gran Sasso

Low energy neutrino astrophysics studies the evolutionary life of the stars via the neutrinos emitted during the quiescent phase (solar neutrinos) and during the explosive death of big mass stars (supernova neutrinos). The neutrino mean free path in matter is about twenty orders of magnitude greater than that of light; therefore neutrinos reaching us can be produced also in deep and high-density levels of stars. Since massless neutrinos are unaffected by their travel in the interstellar space, their energies and arrival directions carry information on the star history. The subject of this thesis is the search for neutrino bursts from galactic stellar gravitational collapses performed in the MACRO experiment, a large area modular detector, operating since autumn 1989.