arXiv subjects

Y. Kishimoto

Publications and source records attributed to Y. Kishimoto.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Development of low radioactivity photomultiplier tubes for the XMASS-I detector

XMASS-I is a single-phase liquid xenon detector whose purpose is direct detection of dark matter. To achieve the low background requirements necessary in the detector, a new model of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), R10789, with a hexagonal window was developed based on the R8778 PMT used in the XMASS prototype detector. We screened the numerous component materials for their radioactivity. During development, the largest contributions to the reduction of radioactivity came from the stem and the dynode support. The glass stem was exchanged to the Kovar alloy one and the ceramic support were changed to the quartz one. R10789 is the first model of Hamamatsu Photonics K. K. that adopted these materials for low background purposes and provided a groundbreaking step for further reductions of radioactivity in PMTs. Measurements with germanium detectors showed 1.2$\pm$0.3 mBq/PMT of $^{226}$Ra, less than 0.78 mBq/PMT of $^{228}$Ra, 9.1$\pm$2.2 mBq/PMT of $^{40}$K, and 2.8$\pm$0.2 mBq/PMT of $^{60}$Co. In this paper, the radioactive details of the developed R10789 are described together with our screening methods and the components of the PMT.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Measurement of neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasi-elastic cross section using atmospheric neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande

Neutral current (NC) interactions of atmospheric neutrinos on oxygen form one of the major backgrounds in the search for supernova relic neutrinos with water-based Cherenkov detectors. The NC channel is dominated by neutrino quasi-elastic (NCQE) scattering off nucleons inside $^{16}$O nuclei. In this paper we report the first measurement of NCQE cross section using atmospheric neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande (SK). The measurement used 2,778 live days of SK-IV data with a fiducial volume of 22.5 kiloton water. Within the visible energy window of 7.5-29.5 MeV, we observed $117$ events compared to the expected $71.9$ NCQE signal and $53.1$ background events. Weighted by the atmospheric neutrino spectrum from 160 MeV to 10 GeV, the flux averaged NCQE cross section is measured to be $(1.01\pm0.17(\text{stat.})^{+0.78}_{-0.30}(\text{sys.}))\times10^{-38}$ cm$^2$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2019

Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillation Analysis With Improved Event Reconstruction in Super-Kamiokande IV

A new event reconstruction algorithm based on a maximum likelihood method has been developed for Super-Kamiokande. Its improved kinematic and particle identification capabilities enable the analysis of atmospheric neutrino data in a detector volume 32% larger than previous analyses and increases sensitivity to the neutrino mass hierarchy. Analysis of a 253.9 kton-year exposure of the Super-Kamiokande IV atmospheric neutrino data has yielded a weak preference for the normal hierarchy, disfavoring the inverted hierarchy at 74% assuming oscillations at the best fit of the analysis.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2018

A direct dark matter search in XMASS-I

A search for dark matter using an underground single-phase liquid xenon detector was conducted at the Kamioka Observatory in Japan, particularly for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). We have used 705.9 live days of data in a fiducial volume containing 97 kg of liquid xenon at the center of the detector. The event rate in the fiducial volume after the data reduction was ${\rm (4.2 \pm 0.2) \times 10^{-3} \, day^{-1}kg^{-1} keV_{ee}^{-1}}$ at ${\rm 5 \, keV_{ee}}$, with a signal efficiency of ${\rm 20\%}$. All the remaining events are consistent with our background evaluation, mostly of the "mis-reconstructed events" originated from $^{210}$Pb in the copper plates lining the detector's inner surface. The obtained upper limit on a spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section was ${\rm 2.2 \times 10^{-44} \, cm^{2}}$ for a WIMP mass of ${\rm 60 \, GeV/c^{2}}$ at the $90\%$ confidence level, which was the most stringent limit among results from single-phase liquid xenon detectors.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

A measurement of the scintillation decay time constant of nuclear recoils in liquid xenon with the XMASS-I detector

We report an in-situ measurement of the nuclear recoil (NR) scintillation decay time constant in liquid xenon (LXe) using the XMASS-I detector at the Kamioka underground laboratory in Japan. XMASS-I is a large single-phase LXe scintillation detector whose purpose is the direct detection of dark matter via NR which can be induced by collisions between Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) and a xenon nucleus. The inner detector volume contains 832 kg of LXe. $^{252}$Cf was used as an external neutron source for irradiating the detector. The scintillation decay time constant of the resulting neutron induced NR was evaluated by comparing the observed photon detection times with Monte Carlo simulations. Fits to the decay time prefer two decay time components, one for each of the Xe$_{2}^{*}$ singlet and triplet states, with $τ_{S}$ = 4.3$\pm$0.6 ns taken from prior research, $τ_{T}$ was measured to be 26.9$^{+0.7}_{-1.1}$ ns with a singlet state fraction F$_{S}$ of 0.252$^{+0.027}_{-0.019}$.We also evaluated the performance of pulse shape discrimination between NR and electron recoil (ER) with the aim of reducing the electromagnetic background in WIMP searches. For a 50\% NR acceptance, the ER acceptance was 13.7${\pm}$1.0\% and 4.1${\pm}$0.7\% in the energy ranges of 5--10 keV$_{\rm ee}$ and 10--15 keV$_{\rm ee}$, respectively.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Search for sub-GeV dark matter by annual modulation using XMASS-I detector

A search for dark matter (DM) with mass in the sub-GeV region (0.32-1 GeV) was conducted by looking for an annual modulation signal in XMASS, a single-phase liquid xenon detector. Inelastic nuclear scattering accompanied by bremsstrahlung emission was used to search down to an electron equivalent energy of 1 keV. The data used had a live time of 2.8 years (3.5 years in calendar time), resulting in a total exposure of 2.38 ton-years. No significant modulation signal was observed and 90% confidence level upper limits of $1.6 \times 10^{-33}$ cm$^2$ at 0.5 GeV was set for the DM-nucleon cross section. This is the first experimental result of a search for DM mediated by the bremsstrahlung effect. In addition, a search for DM with mass in the multi-GeV region (4-20 GeV) was conducted with a lower energy threshold than previous analysis of XMASS. Elastic nuclear scattering was used to search down to a nuclear recoil equivalent energy of 2.3 keV, and upper limits of 2.9 $\times$10$^{-42}$ cm$^2$ at 8 GeV was obtained.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Dinucleon and Nucleon Decay to Two-Body Final States with no Hadrons in Super-Kamiokande

Using 0.37 megaton$\cdot$years of exposure from the Super-Kamiokande detector, we search for 10 dinucleon and nucleon decay modes that have a two-body final state with no hadrons. These baryon and lepton number violating modes have the potential to probe theories of unification and baryogenesis. For five of these modes the searches are novel, and for the other five modes we improve the limits by more than one order of magnitude. No significant evidence for dinucleon or nucleon decay is observed and we set lower limits on the partial lifetime of oxygen nuclei and on the nucleon partial lifetime that are above $4\times 10^{33}$ years for oxygen via the dinucleon decay modes and up to about $4 \times 10^{34}$ years for nucleons via the single nucleon decay modes.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2018

Search for dark matter in the form of hidden photons and axion-like particles in the XMASS detector

Hidden photons and axion-like particles are candidates for cold dark matter if they were produced non-thermally in the early universe. We conducted a search for both of these bosons using 800 live-days of data from the XMASS detector with 327 kg of liquid xenon in the fiducial volume. No significant signal was observed, and thus we set constraints on the $α' / α$ parameter related to kinetic mixing of hidden photons and the coupling constant $g_{Ae}$ of axion-like particles in the mass range from 40 to 120 keV/$c^2$, resulting in $α' / α< 6 \times 10^{-26}$ and $g_{Ae} < 4 \times 10^{-13}$. These limits are the most stringent derived from both direct and indirect searches to date.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Development of the measurement for radium using germanium detector with molecular recognition resin

High-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors are widely used for the measurement of the low concentrated radioactivities. For the Super-Kamiokande-Gadolinium project, the concentration of radium in Gd$_2$(SO$_4$)$_3{\cdot}$8H$_2$O is determined by using HPGe detectors. The amount of the sample is generally limited by the size of the sample space of a HPGe detector. This leads the limitation of the detector efficiency. A new method of chemical extraction using the molecular recognition resin was developed to minimize this problem. Using the developed method, radium could be extracted from Gd$_2$(SO$_4$)$_3{\cdot}$8H$_2$O and concentrated to smaller amount of the resin at a recovery rate of 81$\pm$4\%, which was estimated by using barium as a recovery monitor. This made it possible to set the sample closer to an HPGe crystal and reduce self screening effect, resulting in increasing the detection efficiency of an HPGe detector. The developed method is reported on this letter.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Atmospheric neutrino oscillation analysis with external constraints in Super-Kamiokande I-IV

An analysis of atmospheric neutrino data from all four run periods of \superk optimized for sensitivity to the neutrino mass hierarchy is presented. Confidence intervals for $Δm^2_{32}$, $\sin^2 θ_{23}$, $\sin^2 θ_{13}$ and $δ_{CP}$ are presented for normal neutrino mass hierarchy and inverted neutrino mass hierarchy hypotheses based on atmospheric neutrino data alone. Additional constraints from reactor data on $θ_{13}$ and from published binned T2K data on muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance are added to the atmospheric neutrino fit to give enhanced constraints on the above parameters. Over the range of parameters allowed at 90% confidence level, the normal mass hierarchy is favored by between 91.5% and 94.5% based on the combined result.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2018

Search for Boosted Dark Matter Interacting With Electrons in Super-Kamiokande

A search for boosted dark matter using 161.9 kiloton-years of Super-Kamiokande IV data is presented. We search for an excess of elastically scattered electrons above the atmospheric neutrino background, with a visible energy between 100 MeV and 1 TeV, pointing back to the Galactic Center or the Sun. No such excess is observed. Limits on boosted dark matter event rates in multiple angular cones around the Galactic Center and Sun are calculated. Limits are also calculated for a baseline model of boosted dark matter produced from cold dark matter annihilation or decay.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2018

Direct dark matter search by annual modulation with 2.7 years of XMASS-I data

An annual modulation signal due to the Earth orbiting around the Sun would be one of the strongest indications of the direct detection of dark matter. In 2016, we reported a search for dark matter by looking for this annual modulation with our single-phase liquid xenon XMASS-I detector. That analysis resulted in a slightly negative modulation amplitude at low energy. In this work, we included more than one year of additional data, which more than doubles the exposure to 800 live days with the same 832 kg target mass. When we assume weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter elastically scattering on the xenon target, the exclusion upper limit for the WIMP-nucleon cross section was improved by a factor of 2 to 1.9$\times$10$^{-41}$cm$^2$ at 8 GeV/c$^2$ at 90\% confidence level with our newly implemented data selection through a likelihood method. For the model-independent case, without assuming any specific dark matter model, we obtained more consistency with the null hypothesis than before with a $p$-value of 0.11 in the 1$-$20 keV energy region. This search probed this region with an exposure that was larger than that of DAMA/LIBRA. We also did not find any significant amplitude in the data for periodicity with periods between 50 and 600 days in the energy region between 1 to 6 keV.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Improved search for two-neutrino double electron capture on $^{124}$Xe and $^{126}$Xe using particle identification in XMASS-I

We conducted an improved search for the simultaneous capture of two $K$-shell electrons on the $^{124}$Xe and $^{126}$Xe nuclei with emission of two neutrinos using 800.0 days of data from the XMASS-I detector. A novel method to discriminate $γ$-ray/$X$-ray or double electron capture signals from $β$-ray background using scintillation time profiles was developed for this search. No significant signal was found when fitting the observed energy spectra with the expected signal and background. Therefore, we set the most stringent lower limits on the half-lives at $2.1 \times 10^{22}$ and $1.9 \times 10^{22}$ years for $^{124}$Xe and $^{126}$Xe, respectively, with 90% confidence level. These limits improve upon previously reported values by a factor of 4.5.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2018

Search for Neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande associated with the GW170817 neutron-star merger

We report the results of a neutrino search in Super-Kamiokande for coincident signals with the first detected gravitational wave produced by a binary neutron star merger, GW170817, which was followed by a short gamma-ray burst, GRB170817A, and a kilonova/macronova. We searched for coincident neutrino events in the range from 3.5 MeV to $\sim$100 PeV, in a time window $\pm$500 seconds around the gravitational wave detection time, as well as during a 14-day period after the detection. No significant neutrino signal was observed for either time window. We calculated 90% confidence level upper limits on the neutrino fluence for GW170817. From the upward-going-muon events in the energy region above 1.6 GeV, the neutrino fluence limit is $16.0^{+0.7}_{-0.6}$ ($21.3^{+1.1}_{-0.8}$) cm$^{-2}$ for muon neutrinos (muon antineutrinos), with an error range of $\pm5^{\circ}$ around the zenith angle of NGC4993, and the energy spectrum is under the assumption of an index of $-2$. The fluence limit for neutrino energies less than 100 MeV, for which the emission mechanism would be different than for higher-energy neutrinos, is also calculated. It is $6.6 \times 10^7$ cm$^{-2}$ for anti-electron neutrinos under the assumption of a Fermi-Dirac spectrum with average energy of 20 MeV.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

Identification of $^{210}$Pb and $^{210}$Po in the bulk of copper samples with a low-background alpha particle counter

We established a method to assay $^{210}$Pb and $^{210}$Po contaminations in the bulk of copper samples using a low-background alpha particle counter. The achieved sensitivity for the $^{210}$Pb and $^{210}$Po contaminations reaches a few mBq/kg. Due to this high sensitivity, the $^{210}$Pb and $^{210}$Po contaminations in oxygen free copper bulk were identified and measured for the first time. The $^{210}$Pb contaminations of our oxygen free copper samples were 17-40 mBq/kg. Based on our investigation of copper samples in each production step, the $^{210}$Pb in oxygen free copper was understood to be a small residual of an electrolysis process. This method to measure bulk contaminations of $^{210}$Pb and $^{210}$Po could be applied to other materials.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Search for an excess of events in the Super-Kamiokande detector in the directions of the astrophysical neutrinos reported by the IceCube Collaboration

We present the results of a search in the Super-Kamiokande (SK) detector for excesses of neutrinos with energies above a few GeV that are in the direction of the track events reported in IceCube. Data from all SK phases (SK-I through SK-IV) were used, spanning a period from April 1996 to April 2016 and corresponding to an exposure of 225 kilotonne-years . We considered the 14 IceCube track events from a data set with 1347 livetime days taken from 2010 to 2014. We use Poisson counting to determine if there is an excess of neutrinos detected in SK in a 10 degree search cone (5 degrees for the highest energy data set) around the reconstructed direction of the IceCube event. No significant excess was found in any of the search directions we examined. We also looked for coincidences with a recently reported IceCube multiplet event. No events were detected within a $\pm$ 500 s time window around the first detected event, and no significant excess was seen from that direction over the lifetime of SK.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2017

A Measurement of the Tau Neutrino Cross Section in Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations with Super-Kamiokande

Using 5,326 days of atmospheric neutrino data, a search for atmospheric tau neutrino appearance has been performed in the Super-Kamiokande experiment. Super-Kamiokande measures the tau normalization to be 1.47$\pm$0.32 under the assumption of normal neutrino hierarchy, relative to the expectation of unity with neutrino oscillation. The result excludes the hypothesis of no-tau-appearance with a significance level of 4.6$σ$. The inclusive charged-current tau neutrino cross section averaged by the tau neutrino flux at Super-Kamiokande is measured to be $(0.94\pm0.20)\times 10^{-38}$ cm$^{2}$. The measurement is consistent with the Standard Model prediction, agreeing to within 1.5$σ$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2017

Search for solar Kaluza-Klein axion by annual modulation with the XMASS-I detector

In theories with the large extra dimensions beyond the standard 4-dimensional spacetime, axions could propagate in such extra dimensions, and acquire Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations. These KK axions are produced in the Sun and could solve unexplained heating of the solar corona. While most of the solar KK axions escape from the solar system, a small fraction is gravitationally trapped in orbits around the Sun. They would decay into two photons inside a terrestrial detector. The event rate is expected to modulate annually depending on the distance from the Sun. We have searched for the annual modulation signature using $832\times 359$ kg$\cdot$days of XMASS-I data. No significant event rate modulation is found, and hence we set the first experimental constraint on the KK axion-photon coupling of $4.8 \times 10^{-12}\, \mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ at 90% confidence level for a KK axion number density of $\bar{n}_\mathrm{a} = 4.07 \times 10^{13}\, \mathrm{m}^{-3}$, the total number of extra dimensions $n = 2$, and the number of extra dimensions $δ= 2$ that axions can propagate in.

hep-ex↗