Super-Kamiokande (SK) can search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by detecting neutrinos produced from WIMP annihilations occurring inside the Sun. In this analysis, we include ...neutrino events with interaction vertices in the detector in addition to upward-going muons produced in the surrounding rock. Compared to the previous result, which used the upward-going muons only, the signal acceptances for light (few-GeV/c^{2}-200-GeV/c^{2}) WIMPs are significantly increased. We fit 3903 days of SK data to search for the contribution of neutrinos from WIMP annihilation in the Sun. We found no significant excess over expected atmospheric-neutrino background and the result is interpreted in terms of upper limits on WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross sections under different assumptions about the annihilation channel. We set the current best limits on the spin-dependent WIMP-proton cross section for WIMP masses below 200 GeV/c^{2} (at 10 GeV/c^{2}, 1.49×10^{-39} cm^{2} for χχ→bbover ¯ and 1.31×10^{-40} cm^{2} for χχ→τ^{+}τ^{-} annihilation channels), also ruling out some fraction of WIMP candidates with spin-independent coupling in the few-GeV/c^{2} mass range.
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A comprehensive study of the atmospheric neutrino flux in the energy region from sub-GeV up to several TeV using the Super-Kamiokande (SK) water Cherenkov detector is presented in this paper. The ...energy and azimuthal spectra, and variation over time, of the atmospheric νe+ν¯e and νμ+ν¯μ fluxes are measured. The energy spectra are obtained using an iterative unfolding method by combining various event topologies with differing energy responses. The azimuthal spectra depending on energy and zenith angle, and their modulation by geomagnetic effects, are also studied. A predicted east-west asymmetry is observed in both the νe and νμ samples at 8.0σ and 6.0σ significance, respectively, and an indication that the asymmetry dipole angle changes depending on the zenith angle was seen at the 2.2σ level. The measured energy and azimuthal spectra are consistent with the current flux models within the estimated systematic uncertainties. A study of the long-term correlation between the atmospheric neutrino flux and the solar magnetic activity cycle is performed, and a weak preference for a correlation was seen at the 1.1σ level, using SK-I–SK-IV data spanning a 20-year period. For several particularly strong solar activity periods, corresponding to Forbush decrease events, no theoretical prediction is available but a deviation below the typical neutrino event rate is seen at the 2.4σ level. The seasonal modulation of the neutrino flux is also examined, but the change in flux at the SK site is predicted to be negligible, and, as expected, no evidence for a seasonal correlation is seen.
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Calibration of the Super-Kamiokande detector Abe, K.; Iyogi, K.; Kameda, J. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
02/2014, Volume:
737
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Procedures and results on hardware-level detector calibration in Super-Kamiokande (SK) are presented in this paper. In particular, we report improvements made in our calibration methods for the ...experimental phase IV in which new readout electronics have been operating since 2008.
The topics are separated into two parts. The first part describes the determination of constants needed to interpret the digitized output of our electronics so that we can obtain physical numbers such as photon counts and their arrival times for each photomultiplier tube (PMT). In this context, we developed an in situ procedure to determine high-voltage settings for PMTs in large detectors like SK, as well as a new method for measuring PMT quantum efficiency and gain in such a detector.
The second part describes modeling of the detector in Monte Carlo simulations, including, in particular, the optical properties of the water target and their variability over time. Detailed studies on water quality are also presented.
As a result of this work, we have achieved a precision sufficient for physics analyses over a wide energy range (from a few MeV to above 1TeV). For example, charge determination was at the level of 1%, and the timing resolution was 2.1ns at the one-photoelectron charge level and 0.5ns at the 100-photoelectron charge level.
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We report an indication that the elastic scattering rate of solar B8 neutrinos with electrons in the Super-Kamiokande detector is larger when the neutrinos pass through Earth during nighttime. We ...determine the day-night asymmetry, defined as the difference of the average day rate and average night rate divided by the average of those two rates, to be -3.2 ± 1.1(stat) ± 0.5(syst)%, which deviates from zero by 2.7 σ. Since the elastic scattering process is mostly sensitive to electron-flavored solar neutrinos, a nonzero day-night asymmetry implies that the flavor oscillations of solar neutrinos are affected by the presence of matter within the neutrinos' flight path. Super-Kamiokande's day-night asymmetry is consistent with neutrino oscillations for 4 × 10(-5) eV(2) ≤ Δm 2(21) ≤ 7 × 10(-5) eV(2) and large mixing values of θ12, at the 68% C.L.
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Cosmic-ray-muon spallation-induced radioactive isotopes with beta decays are one of the major backgrounds for solar, reactor, and supernova relic neutrino experiments. Unlike in scintillator, ...production yields for cosmogenic backgrounds in water have not been exclusively measured before, yet they are becoming more and more important in next generation neutrino experiments designed to search for rare signals. We have analyzed the low-energy trigger data collected at Super-Kamiokande IV in order to determine the production rates of B super(12), N super(12), N super(16), Be super(11), Li super(9), He super(8), C super(9), Li super(8), B super(8), and C super(15). These rates were extracted from fits to time differences between parent muons and subsequent daughter beta 's by fixing the known isotope lifetimes. Since Li super(9) can fake an inverse-beta-decay reaction chain via a beta +n cascade decay, producing an irreducible background with detected energy up to a dozen MeV, a dedicated study is needed for evaluating its impact on future measurements; the application of a neutron tagging technique using correlated triggers was found to improve this Li super(9) measurement. The measured yields were generally found to be comparable with theoretical calculations, except the cases of the isotopes Li super(8)/B super(8) and Li super(9).
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LiteBIRD is a proposed CMB polarization satellite project to probe the inflationary B-mode signal. The satellite is designed to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio with a 68 % confidence level ...uncertainty of
σ
r
<
10
-
3
, including statistical, instrumental systematic, and foreground uncertainties. LiteBIRD will observe the full sky from the second Lagrange point for 3 years. We have a focal plane layout for observing frequency coverage that spans 40–402 GHz to characterize the galactic foregrounds. We have two detector candidates, transition-edge sensor bolometers and microwave kinetic inductance detectors. In both cases, a telecentric focal plane consists of approximately
2
×
10
3
superconducting detectors. We will present the mission overview of LiteBIRD, the project status, and the TES focal plane layout.
Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino data were fit with an unbinned maximum likelihood method to search for the appearance of tau leptons resulting from the interactions of oscillation-generated tau ...neutrinos in the detector. Relative to the expectation of unity, the tau normalization is found to be 1.42 ± 0.35(stat)(-0.12)(+0.14)(syst) excluding the no-tau-appearance hypothesis, for which the normalization would be zero, at the 3.8σ level. We estimate that 180.1 ± 44.3(stat)(-15.2)(+17.8) (syst) tau leptons were produced in the 22.5 kton fiducial volume of the detector by tau neutrinos during the 2806 day running period. In future analyses, this large sample of selected tau events will allow the study of charged current tau neutrino interaction physics with oscillation produced tau neutrinos.
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We present a search for differences in the oscillations of antineutrinos and neutrinos in the Super-Kamiokande-I, -II, and -III atmospheric neutrino sample. Under a two-flavor disappearance model ...with separate mixing parameters between neutrinos and antineutrinos, we find no evidence for a difference in oscillation parameters. Best-fit antineutrino mixing is found to be at (Δm2,sin2 2θ)=(2.0×10(-3) eV2, 1.0) and is consistent with the overall Super-K measurement.
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The K2K experiment observes indications of neutrino oscillation: a reduction of nu(mu) flux together with a distortion of the energy spectrum. Fifty-six beam neutrino events are observed in ...Super-Kamiokande (SK), 250 km from the neutrino production point, with an expectation of 80.1(+6.2)(-5.4). Twenty-nine one ring mu-like events are used to reconstruct the neutrino energy spectrum, which is better matched to the expected spectrum with neutrino oscillation than without. The probability that the observed flux at SK is explained by statistical fluctuation without neutrino oscillation is less than 1%.
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GUT monopoles captured by the Sun’s gravitation are expected to catalyze proton decays via the Callan–Rubakov process. In this scenario, protons, which initially decay into pions, will ultimately ...produce νe,νμ and ν¯μ. After undergoing neutrino oscillation, all neutrino species appear when they arrive at the Earth, and can be detected by a 50,000 metric ton Water Cherenkov detector, Super–Kamiokande (SK). A search for low energy neutrinos in the electron total energy range from 19 to 55MeV was carried out with SK and gives a monopole flux limit of FM(σ0/1mb)<6.3×10-24(βM/10-3)2cm-2s-1sr-1 at 90% C.L., where βM is the monopole velocity in units of the speed of light and σ0 is the catalysis cross section at βM=1. The obtained limit is several orders of magnitude more stringent than the current best cosmic-ray supermassive monopole flux limit for βM<10-2 and also two orders of magnitude lower than the result of the Kamiokande experiment, which used a similar detection method.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
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