Published papers

Core-collapse supernovae are among the most magnificent events in the observable universe. They produce many of the chemical elements necessary for life to exist and their remnants - neutron stars and black holes - are interesting astrophysical objects in their own right. However, despite millennia of observations and almost a century of astrophysical study, the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae is not yet well understood. Hyper-Kamiokande is a next-generation neutrino detector that will be able to observe the neutrino flux from the next galactic core-collapse supernova in unprecedented detail. We focus on the first 500 ms of the neutrino burst, corresponding to the accretion phase, and use a newly-developed, high-precision supernova event generator to simulate Hyper-Kamiokande's response to five different supernova models. We show that Hyper-Kamiokande will be able to distinguish between these models with high accuracy for a supernova at a distance of up to 100 kpc. Once the next galactic supernova happens, this ability will be a powerful tool for guiding simulations toward a precise reproduction of the explosion mechanism observed in nature.

The R12860, a new 50-cm photomultiplier tube (PMT) manufactured by Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., was developed for Hyper-Kamiokande to enable measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters with unprecedented precision. To minimize systematic uncertainties, the PMT responses — detection timing, charge, and efficiency — were evaluated in detail with an emphasis on their uniformity with respect to the light incident position on the photosensitive area. Timing measurements performed over the entire PMT aperture revealed a small variation of less than 1.4 ns within the region |θ| < 70°. Here, θ parameterizes the light incident position, with θ = 0° at the PMT center and θ = ±90° at the edge. In addition, the magnetic-field dependence of the detection timing was evaluated along two orthogonal axes of the PMT aperture. It was found that a 100 mG magnetic field could either delay or advance the detection timing depending on its direction; however, the shift was less than 1 ns within |θ| < 60°. Finally, all three responses — timing, charge, and efficiency — were investigated along the two axes over the expected range of high-voltage in operation and found to be quite stable.

In 2024, a failed supernova (SN) candidate, M31-2014-DS1, was reported in the Andromeda galaxy (M31), located at a distance of approximately 770 kpc. In this Letter, we search for neutrinos from this failed SN using data from Super-Kamiokande (SK). Based on the estimated time of black hole formation inferred from optical and infrared observations, we define a search window for neutrino events in the SK data. Using this window, we develop a dedicated analysis method for failed SNe and apply it to M31-2014-DS1, by conducting a cluster search using the timing and energy information of candidate events. No significant neutrino excess is observed within the search region. Consequently, we place an upper limit on the time-integrated electron antineutrino luminosity from M31-2014-DS1 and discuss its implications for various failed SN models and their neutrino emission characteristics. Despite the 18 MeV threshold adopted to suppress backgrounds, the search remains sufficiently sensitive to constrain the Shen-TM1 equation of state, in a more optimistic emission scenario with progenitor stars of 40 M⊙ and relatively high mean electron-antineutrino energies of about 23.2 MeV, yielding a 90% confidence level upper limit of 1.76 × 1053 erg on the time-integrated electron antineutrino luminosity, moderately above the expected value of 1.35 × 1053 erg.

We report a flux-integrated cross section measurement of muon neutrino interactions on water and hydrocarbon via charged current reactions without charged pions in the final state with the WAGASCI-BabyMIND detector, which was installed in the T2K near detector hall in 2018. The detector is located 1.5° off-axis and is exposed to a more energetic neutrino flux than ND280, another T2K near detector, which is located at a different off-axis position. The total flux-integrated cross section is measured to be 1.26 ± 0.18(stat + syst) x 10-39 cm2=nucleon on CH and 1.44 ± 0.21(stat + syst) x 10-39 cm2=nucleon on H2O. These results are compared to model predictions provided by the NEUT v5.3.2 and GENIE v2.8.0 Monte Carlo generators and the measurements are compatible with these models. Differential cross sections in muon momentum and cosine of the muon scattering angle are also reported. This is the first such measurement reported with the WAGASCI-BabyMIND detector and utilizes the 2020 and 2021 datasets.

In recent neutrino detectors, neutrons produced in neutrino reactions play an important role. Muon capture on oxygen nuclei is one of the processes that produce neutrons in water Cherenkov detectors. We measured neutron multiplicity in the process using cosmic ray muons that stop in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande detector. For this measurement, neutron detection efficiency is obtained with the muon capture events followed by gamma rays to be 50.2-2.1+2.0%. By fitting the observed multiplicity considering the detection efficiency, we measure neutron multiplicity in muon capture as P(0)=24±3%, P(1)=70-2+3%, P(2)=6.1±0.5%, P(3)=0.38±0.09%. This is the first measurement of the multiplicity of neutrons associated with muon capture on oxygen without neutron energy threshold.

We report the search result for the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB) in neutrino energies beyond 9.3 MeV in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande (SK) detector with a 22,500 × 956.2 m3 day exposure. Starting in the summer of 2020, SK introduced 0.01% gadolinium (Gd) by mass into its ultrapure water to enhance the neutron capture signal, termed the SK-VI phase. This was followed by a 0.03% Gd-loading in 2022, a phase referred to as SK-VII. We then conducted a DSNB search using 552.2 days of SK-VI data and 404.0 days of SK-VII data through 2023 September. This analysis includes several new features, such as two new machine learning neutron detection algorithms with Gd, an improved atmospheric background-reduction technique, and two parallel statistical approaches. No significant excess over background predictions was found in a DSNB spectrum-independent analysis, and 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper limits on the astrophysical electron antineutrino flux were set. Additionally, a spectral fitting result exhibited a ∼1.2σ disagreement with a null DSNB hypothesis, comparable to a previous result from 5823 days of all SK pure-water phases.

We present the results of searches for nucleon decays via p → νπþ and n → νπ0 using a 0.484 Mt · yr exposure of Super-Kamiokande I-V data covering the entire pure water phase of the experiment. Various improvements on the previous 2014 nucleon decay search [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 121802 (2014)], which used an exposure of 0.173 Mt · yr, are incorporated. The physics models related to pion production and nuclear interaction are refined with external data, and a more comprehensive set of systematic uncertainties, now including those associated with the atmospheric neutrino flux and pion production channels, is considered. Also, the fiducial volume has been expanded by 21%. No significant indication of a nucleon decay signal is found beyond the expected background. Lower bounds on the nucleon partial lifetimes are determined to be 3.5 × 1032 yr for p → νπþ and 1.4 × 1033 yr for n → νπ0 at 90% confidence level.

This paper presents the expected sensitivity to the neutrino oscillation parameters of the Hyper-Kamiokande long-baseline program. The Hyper-Kamiokande experiment, currently under construction in Japan, will measure the oscillations of accelerator-produced neutrinos with thousands of selected events per sample: this corresponds to an increase of statistics of a factor 25–100 with respect to recent results from the currently-running long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan, T2K. In the most favorable scenario we will achieve the discovery of Charge-Parity (CP) violation in neutrino oscillation at 5σ C.L. in less than 3 years. With 10 years of data-taking, and assuming a neutrino : antineutrino beam running ratio of 1:3, a CP violation discovery at 5σ C.L. is possible for more than 60% of the actual values of the CP-violating phase, δCP. Moreover, we will measure δCP with a precision ranging from 20∘, in the case of maximal CP violation, to 6∘, in the case of CP conservation. We aim to achieve a 0.5% resolution on the Δm322 parameter, and a resolution between 3% and 0.5% on the sin2θ23 parameter, depending on its true value. These results are obtained by extending the analysis methods of T2K with dedicated tuning to take into account the Hyper-Kamiokande design: the larger far detector, the more powerful beam, the upgraded near detector ND280, and the planned additional Intermediate Water Cherenkov Detector.

The Super-Kamiokande detector can be used to search for neutrinos in time coincidence with gravitational waves detected by the LIGO–Virgo Collaboration (LVC). Both low-energy (7–100 MeV) and high-energy (0.1–105 GeV) samples were analyzed in order to cover a very wide neutrino spectrum. Follow-ups of 36 (out of 39) gravitational waves reported in the GWTC-2 catalog were examined; no significant excess above the background was observed, with 10 (24) observed neutrinos compared with 4.8 (25.0) expected events in the high-energy (low-energy) samples. A statistical approach was used to compute the significance of potential coincidences. For each observation, p-values were estimated using neutrino direction and LVC sky map; the most significant event (GW190602_175927) is associated with a post-trial p-value of 7.8% (1.4σ). Additionally, flux limits were computed independently for each sample and by combining the samples. The energy emitted as neutrinos by the identified gravitational wave sources was constrained, both for given flavors and for all flavors assuming equipartition between the different flavors, independently for each trigger and by combining sources of the same nature.

Cosmic-ray muons that enter the Super-Kamiokande detector cause hadronic showers due to spallation in water, producing neutrons and radioactive isotopes. These are a major background source for studies of MeV-scale neutrinos and searches for rare events. In 2020, gadolinium was introduced into the ultra-pure water in the Super-Kamiokande detector to improve the detection efficiency of neutrons. In this study, the cosmogenic neutron yield was measured using data acquired during the period after the gadolinium loading. The yield was found to be (2.76±0.02(stat)±0.19(syst))×10-4 μ-1 g-1 cm2 at an average muon energy 259 GeV at the Super-Kamiokande detector.

Cosmic-ray muons are generated from the decay of mesons which are secondary particles produced via hadronic interaction between primary cosmic-ray particles and atmospheric nuclei at the upper the atmosphere. The mesons such pions and kaons mostly decay into muons immediately, reflecting the details of the hadronic interactions depending on their energy and lifetime. The modulation of the cosmic-ray muon rate as well as the flux and the atmospheric kaon-to-pion production ratio are important to determine the flux and energy of the atmospheric neutrino. In particular, the kaon-to-pion production ratio rK/π is measured with the correlation coefficient αT between the cosmic-ray muon rate in the underground detector and the atmospheric temperature. As a result, we obtained the correlation coefficient rK/π = 0.85 ± 0.01 (statistical uncertainty only) and rK/π = 0.12 ± 0.03 (statistical uncertainty only) using the data taken in 10 years at the Super-Kamiokande detector. In this article, we report the current status of measurement of the modulation of the comic-ray muon and the atmospheric kaon-to-pion production ratio.

We report the first measurement of the atmospheric neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic (NCQE) cross section in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande (SK) water Cherenkov detector. In June 2020, SK began a new experimental phase, named SK-Gd, by loading 0.011% by mass of gadolinium into the ultrapure water of the SK detector. The introduction of gadolinium to ultrapure water has the effect of improving the neutron-tagging efficiency. Using a 552.2 day dataset from August 2020 to June 2022, we measure the NCQE cross section to be 0.74±0.22(stat)-0.15+0.85(syst)×10-38 cm2/oxygen in the energy range from 160 MeV to 10 GeV, which is consistent with the atmospheric neutrino-flux-averaged theoretical NCQE cross section and the measurement in the SK pure-water phase within the uncertainties. Furthermore, we compare the models of the nucleon-nucleus interactions in water and find that the binary cascade model and the Liège intranuclear cascade model provide a somewhat better fit to the observed data than the Bertini cascade model. Since the atmospheric neutrino-oxygen NCQE reactions are one of the main backgrounds in the search for diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), these new results will contribute to future studies - and the potential discovery - of the DSNB in SK.

We report measurements of the flux-integrated and + charged-current cross-sections on water and hydrocarbon targets using the T2K anti-neutrino beam with a mean beam energy of 0.86 GeV. The signal is defined as the (anti-)neutrino charged-current interaction with one induced and no detected charged pion or proton. These measurements are performed using a new WAGASCI module recently added to the T2K setup in combination with the INGRID Proton Module. The phase space of muons is restricted to the high-detection efficiency region, 400 and 30 , in the laboratory frame. An absence of pions and protons in the detectable phase spaces of 200, 70 and 600, 70 is required. In this paper, both the; cross-sections and +; cross-sections on water and hydrocarbon targets and their ratios are provided by using the D'Agostini unfolding method. The results of the integrated ; cross-section measurements over this phase space are ;\sigma{\rm H{2}O}=(1.082\pm0.068(\rm stat.) {+0.145}{-0.128}(\rm syst.)) \times 10 {-39}\,{\rm cm {2} / nucleon};, ;\sigma{\rm CH}=(1.096\pm0.054(\rm stat.) {+0.132}{-0.117}(\rm syst.)) \times 10 {-39}\,{\rm cm {2} / nucleon};, and ;\sigma{\rm H{2}O}/\sigma{\rm CH} = 0.987\pm0.078(\rm stat.) {+0.093}{-0.090}(\rm syst.);. The +; cross-section is ;\sigma{\rm H{2}O} = (1.155\pm0.064(\rm stat.) {+0.148}{-0.129}(\rm syst.)) \times 10 {-39}\,{\rm cm {2} / nucleon};, ;\sigma{\rm CH}=(1.159\pm0.049(\rm stat.) {+0.129}{-0.115}(\rm syst.)) \times 10 {-39}\,{\rm cm {2} / nucleon};, and ;\sigma{\rm H{2}O}/\sigma{\rm CH}=0.996\pm0.069(\rm stat.) {+0.083}{-0.078}(\rm syst.);.

The T2K experiment presents new measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters using 19.7 (16.3) × 10 20 protons on target (POT) in (anti-)neutrino mode at the far detector (FD). Compared to the previous analysis, an additional 4.7 × 10 20 POT neutrino data was collected at the FD. Significant improvements were made to the analysis methodology, with the near-detector analysis introducing new selections and using more than double the data. Additionally, this is the first T2K oscillation analysis to use NA61/SHINE data on a replica of the T2K target to tune the neutrino flux model, and the neutrino interaction model was improved to include new nuclear effects and calculations. Frequentist and Bayesian analyses are presented, including results on sin 2θ13 and the impact of priors on the δCP measurement. Both analyses prefer the normal mass ordering and upper octant of sin 2θ23 with a nearly maximally CP-violating phase. Assuming the normal ordering and using the constraint on sin 2θ13 from reactors, sin2θ23=0.561-0.032+0.021 using Feldman–Cousins corrected intervals, and Δm322=2.494-0.058+0.041×10-3eV2 using constant Δχ2 intervals. The CP-violating phase is constrained to δCP=-1.97-0.70+0.97 using Feldman–Cousins corrected intervals, and δCP= 0 , π is excluded at more than 90% confidence level. A Jarlskog invariant of zero is excluded at more than 2 σ credible level using a flat prior in δCP, and just below 2 σ using a flat prior in sin δCP. When the external constraint on sin 2θ13 is removed, sin2θ13=28.0-6.5+2.8×10-3, in agreement with measurements from reactor experiments. These results are consistent with previous T2K analyses.

We present the results of the charge ratio (R) and polarization (P0μ) measurements using decay electron events collected between September 2008 and June 2022 with the Super-Kamiokande detector. Because of its underground location and long operation, we are able to perform high-precision measurements by accumulating cosmic-ray muons. We measured the muon charge ratio to be R=1.32±0.02(stat+syst) at EμcosθZenith=0.7-0.2+0.3 TeV, where Eμ is the muon energy and θZenith is the zenith angle of incoming cosmic-ray muons. This result is consistent with the Honda flux model while indicating a tension with the πK model of 1.9σ. We also measured the muon polarization at the production location to be P0μ=0.52±0.02 (stat+syst) at the muon momentum of 0.9-0.1+0.6 TeV/c at the surface of the mountain; this also suggests a tension with the Honda flux model of 1.5σ. This is the most precise measurement ever to experimentally determine the cosmic-ray muon polarization near 1 TeV/c. These measurement results are useful to improve atmospheric neutrino simulations.

We report an updated measurement of the νμ-induced, and the first measurement of the ν¯μ-induced coherent charged pion production cross section on C12 nuclei in the Tokai-to-Kamioka experiment. This is measured in a restricted region of the final-state phase space for which pμ,π>0.2 GeV, cos(θμ)>0.8 and cos(θπ)>0.6, and at a mean (anti)neutrino energy of 0.85 GeV using the T2K near detector. The measured νμ charged current coherent pion production flux-averaged cross section on C12 is (2.98±0.37(stat)±0.31(syst)-0.00+0.49(Q2 model))×10-40 cm2. The new measurement of the ν¯μ-induced cross section on C12 is (3.05±0.71(stat)±0.39(syst)-0.00+0.74(Q2 model))×10-40 cm2. The results are compatible with both the NEUT 5.4.0 Berger-Sehgal (2009) and GENIE 2.8.0 Rein-Sehgal (2007) model predictions.

We present the development of neutron-tagging techniques in Super-Kamiokande IV using a neural network analysis. The detection efficiency of neutron capture on hydrogen is estimated to be 26%, with a mis-tag rate of 0.016 per neutrino event. The uncertainty of the tagging efficiency is estimated to be 9.0%. Measurement of the tagging efficiency with data from an Americium-Beryllium calibration agrees with this value within 10%. The tagging procedure was performed on 3,244.4 days of SK-IV atmospheric neutrino data, identifying 18,091 neutrons in 26,473 neutrino events. The fitted neutron capture lifetime was measured as 218±9 μs.

Radioactivity induced by cosmic muon spallation is a dominant source of backgrounds for O(10 MeV) neutrino interactions in water Cherenkov detectors. In particular, it is crucial to reduce backgrounds to measure the solar neutrino spectrum and find neutrino interactions from distant supernovae. In this paper we introduce new techniques to locate muon-induced hadronic showers and efficiently reject spallation backgrounds. Applying these techniques to the solar neutrino analysis with an exposure of 2790×22.5 kton·day increases the signal efficiency by 12.6%, approximately corresponding to an additional year of detector running. Furthermore, we present the first spallation simulation at Super-Kamiokande, where we model hadronic interactions using fluka. The agreement between the isotope yields and shower pattern in this simulation and in the data gives confidence in the accuracy of this simulation, and thus opens the door to use it to optimize muon spallation removal in new data with gadolinium-enhanced neutron capture detection.

Due to the progressive increase in size of the latest Cherenkov-type detectors, it is becoming increasingly important to design a suitable compensation system based on coils of the Earth’s magnetic field to ensure the correct operation of the photomultipliers (PMTs). Until now, most studies have assessed the correct functioning of such a system by the proportion of PMTs experiencing more than 100 mG of magnetic field perpendicular to their axis. In the present study, we discuss whether this evaluation parameter is the most appropriate and propose the average residual perpendicular magnetic field as an alternative that more closely reflects the loss of detection efficiency of PMTs. A compensation system design is also proposed that offers good results as well as being economical to optimize this parameter.

We developed a 50 cm-diameter photomultiplier tube (PMT) for Hyper-Kamiokande, which is a large water Cherenkov detector in Japan aiming at neutrino and nucleon-decay research by using forty thousand photosensors. The PMT, R12860 manufactured by Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. (Hamamatsu), achieved a double detection efficiency, reduced timing and charge resolutions as well as sufficient mechanical strength compared with a prior 50 cm PMT, R3600 for Super-Kamiokande. In 2018 over a hundred of the R12860 PMTs were installed in Super-Kamiokande, where we evaluated the performance together with the R3600 PMTs. The collection efficiency reached 95% with a higher quantum efficiency (QE) of 33% typical at peak of wavelength around 400 nm. Charge resolution was evaluated to be 27% in standard deviation and time resolution to be 1.5 nanoseconds in FWHM. Finally, noise reduction succeeded with clean materials and low dark count rate.