The BESS-Polar Collaboration measured the energy spectra of cosmic-ray protons and helium during two long-duration balloon flights over Antarctica in December 2004 and December 2007, at substantially different levels of solar modulation. Proton and h
elium spectra probe the origin and propagation history of cosmic rays in the galaxy, and are essential to calculations of the expected spectra of cosmic-ray antiprotons, positrons, and electrons from interactions of primary cosmic-ray nuclei with the interstellar gas, and to calculations of atmospheric muons and neutrinos. We report absolute spectra at the top of the atmosphere for cosmic-ray protons in the kinetic energy range 0.2-160 GeV and helium nuclei 0.15-80 GeV/nucleon. The corresponding magnetic rigidity ranges are 0.6-160 GV for protons and 1.1-160 GV for helium. These spectra are compared to measurements from previous BESS flights and from ATIC-2, PAMELA, and AMS-02. We also report the ratio of the proton and helium fluxes from 1.1 GV to 160 GV and compare to ratios from PAMELA and AMS-02.
A search for dinucleon decay into pions with the Super-Kamiokande detector has been performed with an exposure of 282.1 kiloton-years. Dinucleon decay is a process that violates baryon number by two units. We present the first search for dinucleon de
cay to pions in a large water Cherenkov detector. The modes $^{16}$O$(pp) rightarrow$ $^{14}$C$pi^{+}pi^{+}$, $^{16}$O$(pn) rightarrow$ $^{14}$N$pi^{+}pi^{0}$, and $^{16}$O$(nn) rightarrow$ $^{14}$O$pi^{0}pi^{0}$ are investigated. No significant excess in the Super-Kamiokande data has been found, so a lower limit on the lifetime of the process per oxygen nucleus is determined. These limits are: $tau_{pprightarrowpi^{+}pi^{+}} > 7.22 times 10^{31}$ years, $tau_{pnrightarrowpi^{+}pi^{0}} > 1.70 times 10^{32}$ years, and $tau_{nnrightarrowpi^{0}pi^{0}} > 4.04 times 10^{32}$ years. The lower limits on each mode are about two orders of magnitude better than previous limits from searches for dinucleon decay in iron.
This paper presents a measurement of the charged current interaction rate of the electron neutrino beam component of the beam above $1.5$~GeV using the large fiducial mass of the T2K $pi^0$ detector. The predominant poriton of the $ u_e$ flux ($sim$8
5 %) at these energies comes from kaon decays. The measured ratio of the observed beam interaction rate to the predicted rate in the detector with water targets filled is 0.89 $pm$ 0.08 (stat.) $pm$ 0.11 (sys.), and with the water targets emptied is 0.90 $pm$ 0.09 (stat.) $pm$ 0.13 (sys.). The ratio obtained for the interactions on water only from an event subtraction method is 0.87 $pm$ 0.33 (stat.) $pm$ 0.21 (sys.). This is the first measurement of the interaction rate of electron neutrinos on water, which is particularly of interest to experiments with water Cherenkov detectors.
We report a measurement of the $ u_mu$ charged current quasi-elastic cross-sections on carbon in the T2K on-axis neutrino beam. The measured charged current quasi-elastic cross-sections on carbon at mean neutrino energies of 1.94 GeV and 0.93 GeV are
$(11.95pm 0.19(stat.)_{-1.47}^{+1.82} (syst.))times 10^{-39}mathrm{cm}^2/mathrm{neutron}$ and $(10.64pm 0.37(stat.)_{-1.65}^{+2.03} (syst.))times 10^{-39}mathrm{cm}^2/mathrm{neutron}$, respectively. These results agree well with the predictions of neutrino interaction models. In addition, we investigated the effects of the nuclear model and the multi-nucleon interaction.
Super-Kamiokande (SK) can search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by detecting neutrinos produced from WIMP annihilations occurring inside the Sun. In this analysis, we include neutrino events with interaction vertices in the detector
in addition to upward-going muons produced in the surrounding rock. Compared to the previous result, which used the upward-going muons only, the signal acceptances for light (few-GeV/$c^2$ $sim$ 200-GeV/$c^2$) WIMPs are significantly increased. We fit 3903 days of SK data to search for the contribution of neutrinos from WIMP annihilation in the Sun. We found no significant excess over expected atmospheric-neutrino background and the result is interpreted in terms of upper limits on WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross sections under different assumptions about the annihilation channel. We set the current best limits on the spin-dependent (SD) WIMP-proton cross section for WIMP masses below 200 GeV/$c^2$ (at 10 GeV/$c^2$, 1.49$times 10^{-39}$ cm$^2$ for $chichirightarrow b bar{b}$ and 1.31$times 10^{-40}$ cm$^2$ for $chichirightarrowtau^+tau^-$ annihilation channels), also ruling out some fraction of WIMP candidates with spin-independent (SI) coupling in the few-GeV/$c^2$ mass range.
Hyper-Kamiokande will be a next generation underground water Cherenkov detector with a total (fiducial) mass of 0.99 (0.56) million metric tons, approximately 20 (25) times larger than that of Super-Kamiokande. One of the main goals of Hyper-Kamiokan
de is the study of $CP$ asymmetry in the lepton sector using accelerator neutrino and anti-neutrino beams. In this paper, the physics potential of a long baseline neutrino experiment using the Hyper-Kamiokande detector and a neutrino beam from the J-PARC proton synchrotron is presented. The analysis uses the framework and systematic uncertainties derived from the ongoing T2K experiment. With a total exposure of 7.5 MW $times$ 10$^7$ sec integrated proton beam power (corresponding to $1.56times10^{22}$ protons on target with a 30 GeV proton beam) to a $2.5$-degree off-axis neutrino beam, it is expected that the leptonic $CP$ phase $delta_{CP}$ can be determined to better than 19 degrees for all possible values of $delta_{CP}$, and $CP$ violation can be established with a statistical significance of more than $3,sigma$ ($5,sigma$) for $76%$ ($58%$) of the $delta_{CP}$ parameter space. Using both $ u_e$ appearance and $ u_mu$ disappearance data, the expected 1$sigma$ uncertainty of $sin^2theta_{23}$ is 0.015(0.006) for $sin^2theta_{23}=0.5(0.45)$.
We report on measurements of neutrino oscillation using data from the T2K long-baseline neutrino experiment collected between 2010 and 2013. In an analysis of muon neutrino disappearance alone, we find the following estimates and 68% confidence inter
vals for the two possible mass hierarchies: Normal Hierarchy: $sin^2theta_{23}=0.514^{+0.055}_{-0.056}$ and $Delta m^2_{32}=(2.51pm0.10)times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2$/c$^4$ Inverted Hierarchy: $sin^2theta_{23}=0.511pm0.055$ and $Delta m^2_{13}=(2.48pm0.10)times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2$/c$^4$ The analysis accounts for multi-nucleon mechanisms in neutrino interactions which were found to introduce negligible bias. We describe our first analyses that combine measurements of muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance to estimate four oscillation parameters and the mass hierarchy. Frequentist and Bayesian intervals are presented for combinations of these parameters, with and without including recent reactor measurements. At 90% confidence level and including reactor measurements, we exclude the region: $delta_{CP}=[0.15,0.83]pi$ for normal hierarchy and $delta_{CP}=[-0.08,1.09]pi$ for inverted hierarchy. The T2K and reactor data weakly favor the normal hierarchy with a Bayes Factor of 2.2. The most probable values and 68% 1D credible intervals for the other oscillation parameters, when reactor data are included, are: $sin^2theta_{23}=0.528^{+0.055}_{-0.038}$ and $|Delta m^2_{32}|=(2.51pm0.11)times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2$/c$^4$.
Hyper-Kamiokande will be a next generation underground water Cherenkov detector with a total (fiducial) mass of 0.99 (0.56) million metric tons, approximately 20 (25) times larger than that of Super-Kamiokande. One of the main goals of Hyper-Kamiokan
de is the study of $CP$ asymmetry in the lepton sector using accelerator neutrino and anti-neutrino beams. In this document, the physics potential of a long baseline neutrino experiment using the Hyper-Kamiokande detector and a neutrino beam from the J-PARC proton synchrotron is presented. The analysis has been updated from the previous Letter of Intent [K. Abe et al., arXiv:1109.3262 [hep-ex]], based on the experience gained from the ongoing T2K experiment. With a total exposure of 7.5 MW $times$ 10$^7$ sec integrated proton beam power (corresponding to $1.56times10^{22}$ protons on target with a 30 GeV proton beam) to a $2.5$-degree off-axis neutrino beam produced by the J-PARC proton synchrotron, it is expected that the $CP$ phase $delta_{CP}$ can be determined to better than 19 degrees for all possible values of $delta_{CP}$, and $CP$ violation can be established with a statistical significance of more than $3,sigma$ ($5,sigma$) for $76%$ ($58%$) of the $delta_{CP}$ parameter space.
The Charged-Current Quasi-Elastic (CCQE) interaction, $ u_{l} + n rightarrow l^{-} + p$, is the dominant CC process at $E_ u sim 1$ GeV and contributes to the signal in accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments operating at int
ermediate neutrino energies. This paper reports a measurement by the T2K experiment of the $ u_{mu}$ CCQE cross section on a carbon target with the off-axis detector based on the observed distribution of muon momentum ($p_mu$) and angle with respect to the incident neutrino beam ($theta_mu$). The flux-integrated CCQE cross section was measured to be $(0.83 pm 0.12) times 10^{-38}textrm{ cm}^{2}$ in good agreement with NEUT MC value of ${0.88 times 10^{-38}} textrm{ cm}^{2}$. The energy dependence of the CCQE cross section is also reported. The axial mass, $M_A^{QE}$, of the dipole axial form factor was extracted assuming the Smith-Moniz CCQE model with a relativistic Fermi gas nuclear model. Using the absolute (shape-only) $p_{mu}costheta_mu$ distribution, the effective $M_A^{QE}$ parameter was measured to be ${1.26^{+0.21}_{-0.18} textrm{ GeV}/c^{2}}$ (${1.43^{+0.28}_{-0.22} textrm{ GeV}/c^{2}}$).
The T2K experiment has performed a search for $ u_e$ disappearance due to sterile neutrinos using $5.9 times 10^{20}$ protons on target for a baseline of $280 m$ in a neutrino beam peaked at about $500 MeV$. A sample of u_e CC interactions in the of
f-axis near detector has been selected with a purity of 63% and an efficiency of 26%. The p-value for the null hypothesis is 0.085 and the excluded region at 95% CL is approximately $sin^2 2 theta_{ee} > 0.3$ for $Delta m^2_{eff} > 7 eV^2 / c^4$.
