Water Cherenkov Detector Research to Enable the World's First Detection of Muon to Electron Neutrino Oscillations

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23340062
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Particle/Nuclear/Cosmic ray/Astro physics
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: OBAYASHI Yoshihisa 東京大学, カブリ数物連携宇宙研究機構, 特任准教授 (50345055)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KOSHIO Yusuke 岡山大学, 自然科学研究科, 准教授 (80292960) ; TOMURA Tomonobu 東京大学, 宇宙線研究所, 特任助教 (60361317) ; TANAKA Hidekazu 東京大学, 宇宙線研究所, 特任助教 (00402769)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ニュートリノ振動 / 水チェレンコフ検出器 / 加速器実験 / T2K

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Upgrades to the hardware and analysis software of Super-Kamiokande, the far detector and integral component of the T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, have been performed to enable both stable operation of the detector and to reduce systematic uncertainties associated with measurements of neutrino interaction times, vertices, and energies.
Using these improvements and overcoming shutdowns due to an earthquake in 2011 and an accident in 2013, T2K has made the world's first observation of oscillation-induced electron neutrino appearance. Knowledge and experience gained throughout this work will be utilized in future studies towards the realization of the next generation of neutrino experiments.

Free Research Field

素粒子・原子核・宇宙線・宇宙物理