Effects of radiation damage caused by proton irradiation on Multi-Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs)

We have investigated the effects caused by proton-induced radiation damage on Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (MPPC), a pixelized photon detector developed by Hamamatsu Photonics. The leakage current of irradiated MPPC samples linearly increases with total irradiated doses due to radiation damage, which is not completely recovered even after a year from the irradiation. No significant change has been observed in the gains at least up to 8.0 Gy ($9.1\times10^7$ n/mm$^2$ in 1 MeV neutron equivalent fluence, $\Phi_{\rm eq}$). The device has completely lost its photon-counting capability due to baseline fluctuations and noise pile-up after 21 Gy irradiation ($2.4\times10^8$ n/mm$^2$ in $\Phi_{\rm eq}$), which might be problematic for some applications, such as ring-imaging Cherenkov detectors. We have found that the pulse-height resolution has been slightly deteriorated after 42 Gy irradiation ($4.8\times10^8$ n/mm$^2$ in $\Phi_{\rm eq}$), where the measured sample has been illuminated with a few hundred photons. This effect should be considered in the case of energy-measurement applications.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Long-lived neutral-kaon flux measurement for the KOTO experiment

The KOTO ($K^0$ at Tokai) experiment aims to observe the CP-violating rare decay $K_L \rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ by using a long-lived neutral-kaon beam produced by the 30 GeV proton beam at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. The $K_L$ flux is an essential parameter for the measurement of the branching fraction. Three $K_L$ neutral decay modes, $K_L \rightarrow 3\pi^0$, $K_L \rightarrow 2\pi^0$, and $K_L \rightarrow 2\gamma$ were used to measure the $K_L$ flux in the beam line in the 2013 KOTO engineering run. A Monte Carlo simulation was used to estimate the detector acceptance for these decays. Agreement was found between the simulation model and the experimental data, and the remaining systematic uncertainty was estimated at the 1.4\% level. The $K_L$ flux was measured as $(4.183 \pm 0.017_{\mathrm{stat.}} \pm 0.059_{\mathrm{sys.}}) \times 10^7$ $K_L$ per $2\times 10^{14}$ protons on a 66-mm-long Au target.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures. To be appeared in Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physic

Search for the decay KL0→3γK_L^0 \rightarrow 3\gamma

We performed a search for the decay $K_L^0 \rightarrow 3\gamma$ with the E391a detector at KEK. In the data accumulated in 2005, no event was observed in the signal region. Based on the assumption of $K_L^0 \rightarrow 3\gamma$ proceeding via parity-violation, we obtained the single event sensitivity to be $(3.23\pm0.14)\times10^{-8}$, and set an upper limit on the branching ratio to be $7.4\times10^{-8}$ at the 90% confidence level. This is a factor of 3.2 improvement compared to the previous results. The results of $K_L^0 \rightarrow 3\gamma$ proceeding via parity-conservation were also presented in this paper

Improved measurement of the K+->pi+nu(nu)over-bar branching ratio

An additional event near the upper kinematic limit for K+-->pi(+)nu(nu) over bar has been observed by experiment E949 at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Combining previously reported and new data, the branching ratio is B(K+-->pi(+)nu(nu) over bar)=(1.47(-0.89)(+1.30))x10(-10) based on three events observed in the pion momentum region 211<P<229 MeV/c. At the measured central value of the branching ratio, the additional event had a signal-to-background ratio of 0.9