GADZOOKS! Supernova Neutrinos Without The Annoying Wait

by Prof. Mark Vagins ((Univ. of Tokyo and Univ. of California, Irvine)

Thursday 25 Feb 2010, 14:30 → 15:30 Asia/Kolkata

AG-69 (Colaba Campus)

Water Cherenkov detectors have been used for many years to study neutrino interactions and search for nucleon decays. Super-Kamiokande, at 50 kilotons the largest such underground detector in the world, has enjoyed over ten years of interesting and important physics results. Looking to the future, for the last six years R&D on a potential upgrade to the detector has been underway. Enriching Super-K with 100,000 kilograms of a water-soluble gadolinium compound - thereby enabling it to detect thermal neutrons and dramatically improving its performance as a detector for supernova neutrinos, reactor neutrinos, atmospheric neutrinos, and also as a target for the new T2K long-baseline neutrino experiment - will be discussed.