Collaborative Research: WoU-MMA: Particle Astrophysics with the Hyper-Kamiokande Detector

合作研究：WoU-MMA：使用 Hyper-Kamiokande 探测器进行粒子天体物理学

• 批准号: 2309966
• 负责人: Thomas Kutter
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: Louisiana State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2309966&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; WoU; MMA; Particle

Hyper-Kamiokande is a particle physics detector that is constructed 600m underground in the Kamioka mine In Hida City, Japan. The detector consists of a 68m diameter and 71m high water tank surrounded by 20,000 50cm diameter photo-sensors which detect the light emissions of particles traversing the water. Its primary purpose is to study neutrinos, elementary particles without electric charge that interact only weakly with detector materials, thus requiring a large detector mass. Hyper-Kamiokande’s mass of 260,000 metric tons makes it the largest detector of this type that has been built so far: the target mass available for neutrino measurement of Hyper-Kamiokande will be more than ten times the equivalent mass of Super-Kamiokande, its predecessor. Hyper-Kamiokande will observe neutrinos in a wide energy range from a variety of natural and man-made sources such as astrophysical neutrinos (e.g. from the sun or stellar explosions known as supernovae), atmospheric neutrinos, and in addition, neutrinos from a beam produced by a particle accelerator at a distance of 295km. Neutrinos are ideal messengers to understand astrophysical phenomena as they are not influenced by electromagnetic forces. Hyper-Kamiokande will therefore serve as an astrophysical neutrino observatory, but it will also study the nature of the neutrino particle itself and will search for the extremely rare decays of protons (or neutrons). This project is to focus upon the astrophysical neutrinos including those of lower energy that may result in new discoveries. A large set of activities included within the participating universities focusing on students in K-12 and at the undergraduate level will provide these students with the opportunity to engage in a world class experiment involving a broad international collaboration.To realize the astrophysical potential of Hyper-Kamiokande, the project will focus on work to optimize triggering, calibration and reconstruction of neutrino interactions, in particular at the lowest detectable energies. Hyper-Kamiokande will measure neutrino oscillations of atmospheric neutrinos, solar neutrinos, and other cosmic neutrinos. These measurements are in addition to accelerator beam measurements. The motivation for also pursuing these “natural” cosmic neutrinos remains strong, as they will significantly contribute to the determination of the “mass ordering” of neutrinos and support and complement CP-violation searches and other beam-related neutrino measurements. Given enough running time, the detection of a neutrino burst from a core-collapse galactic supernova is assured. Such a burst will consist of tens of thousands of neutrino interactions within about ten seconds. Not only will the neutrino energy spectra, time distribution, and flavor composition directly give access to the explosion mechanism and other astrophysical data, but will also explore neutrino properties that cannot be studied any other way: in particular, neutrino-neutrino interactions may play a role. This will test the standard model of particle interactions in regimes otherwise inaccessible. Hyper-Kamiokande promises to give cosmic insights substantially advanced from our current understanding.The award is aligned with the NSF Big Idea of Windows on the Universe: the Era of Multi-messenger Astrophysics as it coordinates the use of multi-messengers observations utilizing cosmic neutrinos and providing alerts to the larger community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Hyper-Kamiokande是一种粒子物理探测器，建于日本平田市神冈煤矿地下600米处。该探测器由一个直径68米、高71米的水箱组成，周围环绕着20,000个直径50厘米的光电传感器，这些传感器可以探测穿过水面的颗粒物的光发射。它的主要目的是研究中微子，即不带电荷的基本粒子，它与探测器材料的相互作用很弱，因此需要很大的探测器质量。Hyper-Kamiokande的质量为26万吨，使其成为迄今建造的此类探测器中最大的：可用于测量Hyper-Kamiokande中微子的目标质量将是其前身Super-Kamiokande的同等质量的十倍以上。Hyper-Kamiokande将观测来自各种自然和人造来源的广泛能量范围的中微子，例如天体物理中微子(例如来自太阳或被称为超新星的恒星爆炸)、大气中微子，以及来自295公里处粒子加速器产生的光束的中微子。中微子是理解天体物理现象的理想信使，因为它们不受电磁力的影响。因此，超级神冈将作为一个天体物理中微子天文台，但它也将研究中微子粒子本身的性质，并将搜索极其罕见的质子(或中子)衰变。这个项目的重点是天体物理中微子，包括那些可能导致新发现的较低能量的中微子。参与大学的一大批活动将集中于K-12和本科水平的学生，将为这些学生提供参与世界级实验的机会，涉及广泛的国际合作。为了实现超神冈的天体物理潜力，该项目将专注于优化中微子相互作用的触发、校准和重建工作，特别是在可检测到的最低能量下。超神冈探测器将测量大气中微子、太阳中微子和其他宇宙中微子的中微子振荡。这些测量是对加速器束测量的补充。追寻这些“天然”宇宙中微子的动机仍然很强，因为它们将大大有助于确定中微子的“质量有序”，并支持和补充CP破坏搜索和其他与束流有关的中微子测量。如果有足够的运行时间，探测到核心塌缩星系超新星爆发的中微子是有保证的。这样的爆发将在大约10秒内由数万次中微子相互作用组成。不仅中微子的能谱、时间分布和气味组成将直接提供爆炸机制和其他天体物理数据，而且还将探索无法通过任何其他方式研究的中微子性质：特别是中微子-中微子相互作用可能发挥作用。这将测试粒子相互作用的标准模型，在其他情况下无法达到。Hyper-Kamiokande承诺提供比我们目前理解更先进的宇宙洞察力。该奖项与NSF关于宇宙之窗的大想法保持一致：多信使天体物理学时代，因为它协调利用宇宙中微子的多信使观测并向更大的社区提供警报。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。