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Itaru Shimizu

Publications and source records attributed to Itaru Shimizu.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Combined Pre-Supernova Alert System with Kamland and Super-Kamiokande

Preceding a core-collapse supernova, various processes produce an increasing amount of neutrinos of all flavors characterized by mounting energies from the interior of massive stars. Among them, the electron antineutrinos are potentially detectable by terrestrial neutrino experiments such as KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande via inverse beta decay interactions. Once these pre-supernova neutrinos are observed, an early warning of the upcoming core-collapse supernova can be provided. In light of this, KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande, both located in the Kamioka mine in Japan, have been monitoring pre-supernova neutrinos since 2015 and 2021, respectively. Recently, we performed a joint study between KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande on pre-supernova neutrino detection. A pre-supernova alert system combining the KamLAND detector and the Super-Kamiokande detector was developed and put into operation, which can provide a supernova alert to the astrophysics community. Fully leveraging the complementary properties of these two detectors, the combined alert is expected to resolve a pre-supernova neutrino signal from a 15 M$_{\odot}$ star within 510 pc of the Earth, at a significance level corresponding to a false alarm rate of no more than 1 per century. For a Betelgeuse-like model with optimistic parameters, it can provide early warnings up to 12 hours in advance.

hep-ex

Search for Majorana neutrinos

Whether there exist elementary particles having Majorana nature is one the fundamental open question that has persisted since the 1930s. The only practical experiments to test the Majorana nature of neutrinos is the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, which has been a major challenge for nuclear and particle physicists. In the 2000's, a number of experiments using advanced technologies have been planned, and some of which have already achieved significant improvements in the search sensitivity. In this article, the current status of the neutrinoless double-beta decay searches are summarized, reviewing the progress of KamLAND-Zen, which recorded the world best sensitivity in the effective Majorana neutrino mass limit.

hep-ex