109 research outputs found
Search for Cosmic-ray Boosted Sub-GeV Dark Matter using Recoil Protons at Super-Kamiokande
We report a search for cosmic-ray boosted dark matter with protons using the
0.37 megatonyears data collected at Super-Kamiokande experiment during
the 1996-2018 period (SKI-IV phase). We searched for an excess of proton
recoils above the atmospheric neutrino background from the vicinity of the
Galactic Center. No such excess is observed, and limits are calculated for two
reference models of dark matter with either a constant interaction
cross-section or through a scalar mediator. This is the first experimental
search for boosted dark matter with hadrons using directional information. The
results present the most stringent limits on cosmic-ray boosted dark matter and
exclude the dark matter-nucleon elastic scattering cross-section between
and for dark matter mass
from 10 MeV/ to 1 GeV/.Comment: With 1-page appendi
Measurement of the cosmogenic neutron yield in Super-Kamiokande with gadolinium loaded water
Cosmic-ray muons that enter the Super-Kamiokande detector cause hadronic
showers due to spallation in water, producing neutrons and radioactive
isotopes. Those are a major background source for studies of MeV-scale
neutrinos and searches for rare events. Since 2020, gadolinium was introduced
in 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 at
259 GeV of average muon energy at the Super-Kamiokande detector.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 3 table
Search for Periodic Time Variations of the Solar B Neutrino Flux Between 1996 and 2018 in Super-Kamiokande
We report a search for time variations of the solar B neutrino flux using
5,804 live days of Super-Kamiokande data collected between May 31, 1996, and
May 30, 2018. Super-Kamiokande measured the precise time of each solar neutrino
interaction over 22 calendar years to search for solar neutrino flux
modulations with unprecedented precision. Periodic modulations are searched for
in a data set comprised of five-day interval solar neutrino flux measurements
with a maximum likelihood method. We also applied the Lomb-Scargle method to
this data set to compare it with previous reports. The only significant
modulation found is due to the elliptic orbit of the Earth around the Sun. The
observed modulation is consistent with astronomical data: we measured an
eccentricity of (1.530.35)\,\%, and a perihelion shift is
(1.513.5)\,days.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, and data file:
"sksolartimevariation5804d.txt
Search for astrophysical electron antineutrinos in Super-Kamiokande with 0.01wt% gadolinium-loaded water
We report the first search result for the flux of astrophysical electron
antineutrinos for energies O(10) MeV in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande
(SK) detector. In June 2020, gadolinium was introduced to the ultra-pure water
of the SK detector in order to detect neutrons more efficiently. In this new
experimental phase, SK-Gd, we can search for electron antineutrinos via inverse
beta decay with efficient background rejection and higher signal efficiency
thanks to the high efficiency of the neutron tagging technique. In this paper,
we report the result for the initial stage of SK-Gd with a exposure at 0.01% Gd mass concentration. No significant excess
over the expected background in the observed events is found for the neutrino
energies below 31.3 MeV. Thus, the flux upper limits are placed at the 90%
confidence level. The limits and sensitivities are already comparable with the
previous SK result with pure-water () owing
to the enhanced neutron tagging
Atmospheric neutrino oscillation analysis with neutron tagging and an expanded fiducial volume in Super-Kamiokande I–V
We present a measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters with the Super-Kamiokande detector using atmospheric neutrinos from the complete pure-water SK I–V (April 1996–July 2020) dataset, including events from an expanded fiducial volume. The dataset corresponds to 6511.3 live days and an exposure of 484.2 kiloton-years. Measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters Δm322, sin2θ23, sin2θ13, δCP, and the preference for the neutrino mass ordering are presented with atmospheric neutrino data alone, and with constraints on sin2θ13 from reactor neutrino experiments. Our analysis including constraints on sin2θ13 favors the normal mass ordering at the 92.3% level
Diffuse supernova neutrino background search at Super-Kamiokande
A new search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) flux has
been conducted at Super-Kamiokande (SK), with a -ktonday
exposure from its fourth operational phase IV. The new analysis improves on the
existing background reduction techniques and systematic uncertainties and takes
advantage of an improved neutron tagging algorithm to lower the energy
threshold compared to the previous phases of SK. This allows for setting the
world's most stringent upper limit on the extraterrestrial flux,
for neutrino energies below 31.3 MeV. The SK-IV results are combined with the
ones from the first three phases of SK to perform a joint analysis using
ktondays of data. This analysis has the world's best
sensitivity to the DSNB flux, comparable to the predictions from
various models. For neutrino energies larger than 17.3 MeV, the new combined
C.L. upper limits on the DSNB flux lie around
cm, strongly disfavoring the most optimistic
predictions. Finally, potentialities of the gadolinium phase of SK and the
future Hyper-Kamiokande experiment are discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 37 figures, 14 table
Indirect search for dark matter from the Galactic Center and halo with the Super-Kamiokande detector
We present a search for an excess of neutrino interactions due to dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) annihilating in the Galactic center or halo based on the data set of Super-Kamiokande-I, -II, -III and -IV taken from 1996 to 2016. We model the neutrino flux, energy, and flavor distributions assuming WIMP self-annihilation is dominant to ν ¯ ν , μ + μ − , b ¯ b , or W + W − . The excess is in comparison to atmospheric neutrino interactions which are modeled in detail and fit to data. Limits on the self-annihilation cross section ⟨ σ A V ⟩ are derived for WIMP masses in the range 1 GeV to 10 TeV, reaching as low as 9.6 × 10 − 23     cm 3   s − 1 for 5 GeV WIMPs in b ¯ b mode and 1.2 × 10 − 24     cm 3   s − 1 for 1 GeV WIMPs in ν ¯ ν mode. The obtained sensitivity of the Super-Kamiokande detector to WIMP masses below several tens of GeV is the best among similar indirect searches to date
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